A test led by the Bank for International Settlements has shown that centralized bank money and tokens and bank deposits can eliminate cross-border payments with a single atomic step across all currencies.
Summary
- Project Agorá has shown that central bank reserves and tokens and bank deposits can cover cross-border payments atomically in all currencies.
- More than 40 private institutions and seven major banks have joined the BIS effort, which has now moved on to real-value performance testing.
- Separately, the BIS has warned that stablecoins and crypto exchange products “for profit” could expose users to the risk of unsecured payments.
According to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), Project Agorá tested how central bank reserves and tokens and commercial bank deposits can settle “all-or-nothing” transactions, so no side is left exposed if one leg fails.
Project Agorá is exploring tokenized banking
Under today’s system, BIS said cross-border transfers can go through multiple intermediary banks before reaching the recipient, which can extend settlement days and increase operational risk during reconciliation. In Project Agorá, BIS and its partners use tokens and blockchain style to reduce emissions and complete simultaneous transactions in all areas.
Project Agorá is a joint effort between BIS, seven major banks, and more than 40 private financial institutions. The BIS said major participating banks include the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, and the Swiss National Bank, as well as major commercial banks and financial firms.
The Agorá project was launched in April 2024 and spent about a year and a half in the design phase before moving to the prototype phase in 2025, BIS said. Active testing began in January 2026, which BIS described as the point at which the campaign moved away from previous conceptual work and into something closer to an operational system.
Participants now plan to move beyond simulations to tests involving real-world transactions using selected currencies and institutions, BIS said. This week, the BIS said the Bank of Canada has joined the program.
Tokenization efforts extend beyond payments
Apart from the Agorá workstream, BIS noted that financial market infrastructure providers and exchanges are creating tokens for traditional securities settlement systems. BIS pointed to DTCC’s plan to roll out tokenized settlement infrastructure for stocks, ETFs, and US Treasuries, while Nasdaq and the Intercontinental Exchange are also building blockchain-based token-equivalent systems.
Project Agorá also sits on the sidelines of the G20 cross-border payments set for 2020. BIS installed Agorá as an attempt to demonstrate that integrated ledgers and tokens can deliver greater improvements than small legacy payment changes.
BIS links payments research with crypto risk warnings
Even as it encourages research into tokenization, the BIS has maintained a cautious tone about privately issued crypto instruments. The BIS has warned that stablecoins could pose risks to the financial system and has called for swift progress in stablecoin regulation.
In addition, as previously reported by crypto.news last month, the BIS said that crypto exchanges functioned as partially regulated “shadow banks,” using customers’ money in ways that could increase leverage and contribute to significant losses, including the write-off of $19 billion by 2025.
In that assessment, BIS noted that “profit” and savings-style products sold on exchanges work like unsecured loans because the platforms restructure user assets into margin lending, proprietary trading, and market making.
