Eurosystem goes live with Pontes, bringing central bank money to tokenised settlement

On 21 September the Eurosystem launched Pontes, a service that lets wholesale transactions in tokenised assets settle in central bank money. The ECB called it the first initiative under its strategic programme to make central bank money “fit for a tokenised future”.

“Pontes brings the stability and trust of central bank money to the European tokenised finance ecosystem,” said Piero Cipollone, the ECB Executive Board member who leads the work. “It will give an important advantage to help it scale.” President Christine Lagarde said the Eurosystem would “continue to make progress in close collaboration with the market”.

Who is on day one

The ECB said an initial group had completed onboarding and could use Pontes immediately:

• Market participants: ABANCA, BayernLB, Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations, Cecabank, Deutsche Bank, Deka Bank, DZ Bank, the European Investment Bank, KfW, Memo Bank, NRW.BANK, Santander and Société Générale.
• DLT operators: Axiology, Cashlink, Clearstream and SWIAT.
• Bundesbank: the Deutsche Bundesbank has also onboarded as a market participant.

Further participants have committed to connect in the coming months.

Phased build-out

Pontes starts with a core set of services. “Enhanced features and longer operating hours” will be added gradually, with full implementation expected by 2028. The design follows the Eurosystem’s 2024 trials of DLT settlement in central bank money. In those trials, public and private participants said access to a risk-free settlement asset was crucial for wider adoption.

Work on a wider ecosystem continues under a separate initiative, Appia. It involves the Eurosystem, Danmarks Nationalbank and public- and private-sector stakeholders, and aims to produce a blueprint by 2028.

Why it matters

Until now, most euro tokenised issuance has settled the cash leg either in commercial bank money or stablecoin-style tokens, or off-chain through conventional payment systems. That has limited delivery-versus-payment on-ledger and kept risk teams cautious. Pontes changes that for a first group of mostly public-sector issuers and large banks.

Practitioners should watch three things:

• Operating hours: the opening hours versus the 24/7 ambitions of DLT venues.
• Service scope: how quickly the “core set of services” grows.
• New operators: whether DLT operators beyond the first four connect.

The participant list looks heavily weighted towards supranational, agency and covered-bond issuance. Primary-market tokenised bonds are where volumes are likely to appear first, before secondary trading.

Sources

• European Central Bank, “Eurosystem brings central bank money to tokenised finance”, 21 September 2026 — https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/pr/date/2026/html/ecb.pr260921~e754847a7b.en.html