The European Central Bank has launched Pontes, a service designed to bring settlement of tokenised assets into existing central bank payment infrastructure. The system, launched on September 21, allows banks and investors to complete transactions on blockchain-based platforms using euros backed by the ECB rather than stablecoins or other forms of private money.
Pontes connects blockchain-based trading platforms with the ECB’s TARGET settlement system. It is intended for wholesale financial markets, where institutions trade and settle instruments including digital bonds and other tokenised assets. Tokenisation is the recording of financial assets in digital form on a blockchain or distributed ledger technology, known as DLT.
Deutsche Bank, Santander, Clearstream, Société Générale and the European Investment Bank were among thirteen financial institutions that had completed onboarding and could use the service from its launch. The ECB did not provide the full list of participating institutions.
The initial service operates between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. CET (0600-1400 GMT) on business days. The Eurosystem, which brings together the ECB and the national central banks of euro area countries, plans to extend those hours gradually to 22.5 per business day. By mid-2028, it plans to provide Pontes on a 24/7 basis, alongside greater programmability, state-of-the-art resilience and multi-currency capability.
The limited initial hours underline the staged nature of the project. Pontes is an immediate link between existing payment arrangements and newer trading platforms, rather than a complete replacement for the wider infrastructure of Europe’s financial markets.
The ECB said it would also place a tiny part of its €23 billion in own funds into blockchain-based securities. Those investments will focus on highly rated, euro-denominated debt issued by public institutions. The central bank has not specified the amount it intends to invest.
The project follows tests conducted in 2024, when the Eurosystem brought together 64 market participants for more than 50 trials and experiments. Those exercises showed that central bank money could be used to settle transactions carried out on DLT platforms.
In March, the Eurosystem also began accepting marketable assets issued through DLT-based services at European central securities depositories, or CSDs, as eligible Eurosystem collateral. That decision provided a route for certain assets created through such services to be used within the Eurosystem’s collateral framework.
Pontes is one half of the Eurosystem’s DLT strategy. The other project, Appia, is intended as the longer-term solution and will eventually replace Pontes. A blueprint for Appia is due in 2028 and is expected to address the architecture, standards and governance needed for a European tokenised financial ecosystem.
The distinction matters because Pontes deals with the immediate task of connecting DLT trading to settlement in central bank money. Appia is intended to set out the broader framework for the market. The Eurosystem has not provided a detailed timetable for the transition between the two projects.
For Pontes’ initial launch, the Eurosystem will levy one-off onboarding fees under what it described as attractive pricing conditions. It has not set out further details of the pricing structure.
The ECB’s work on wholesale settlement sits alongside its plans for a digital euro. The central bank aims to launch a digital euro in 2029, adding a retail element to its wider work on blockchain-based infrastructure and digital forms of money.
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