ECB launches Pontes for tokenised settlement
ECB member Piero Cipollone announced the live launch of the Pontes service, linking European DLT platforms to central bank money and offering one-off onboarding fees. The move follows two years of trials and aims to prevent fragmentation of Europe’s tokenised markets.
Piero Cipollone, a member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, announced on 26 August 2026 that the Pontes service will go live, connecting digital-ledger platforms with the Eurosystem’s TARGET services. The service will allow final settlement of the cash leg in central bank money and will charge only a one-off onboarding fee for early adopters.
The European tokenisation vision
Cipollone had outlined a vision two years earlier that tokenised assets could replace fragmented legacy infrastructures with a single, programmable environment. Europe currently hosts 31 central securities depositories (CSDs), 14 central counterparties (CCPs) and 323 trading venues, and more than 95 % of transactions in 2023 were settled within a single CSD. The goal is to bring all of these functions into a shared digital space, enabling atomic, all-or-nothing settlement and automating coupon payments, collateral moves and compliance checks.
| Item | Count |
|---|---|
| Central securities depositories | 31 |
| Central counterparties | 14 |
| Trading venues | 323 |
The risk is that incompatible platforms could deepen fragmentation, lose the monetary anchor, or create external dependencies. The Eurosystem therefore aims to provide settlement in central bank money, foster a competitive European ecosystem, and preserve strategic autonomy.
Momentum in tokenised finance
Globally, tokenised traditional assets recorded on public blockchains grew roughly five-fold between March 2025 and March 2026. In the United States, one private platform processed an average of USD 354 billion in tokenised repo transactions per day in March 2026, quadrupling the volume a year earlier.
| Region | March 2025 | March 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| United States (repo) | 88.5 billion | 354 billion |
Europe is also advancing. European CSDs have announced large-scale tokenisation initiatives, and in March the Eurosystem began accepting marketable assets issued via DLT-based services as eligible Eurosystem collateral. The market remains small but is at a critical juncture where its architecture can be shaped.
From trials to implementation
In 2024 the Eurosystem convened 64 market participants in over 50 trials and experiments. These tests confirmed that central bank money can settle DLT transactions and that access to it is essential for safe, scalable tokenised finance. The findings were translated into the Pontes and Appia projects.
Pontes will operationalise the commitment to provide central bank money for tokenised settlement. It will connect DLT platforms to TARGET services, synchronise delivery versus payment and other all-or-none transactions, and offer attractive pricing for early adopters.
Appia will build an infrastructure for cross-border settlement of tokenised assets, ensuring that liquidity and participants are not confined to local CSDs.
For more details on the market’s progress, see the latest stats and the project’s milestones in the fixtures section.
Conditions for success
The Eurosystem stresses that technology alone will not determine the outcome. The same DLT can create closed ecosystems or foster competition. The service must therefore prevent fragmentation, maintain the monetary anchor, and avoid external dependence. By delivering central bank money settlement and a unified European market, the ECB aims to leapfrog legacy fragmentation and position the euro as a globally attractive settlement currency.
The next steps involve finalising the DLT Pilot Regime extension, fine-tuning the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, and rolling out Pontes and Appia to the broader market. The service’s launch marks a significant milestone in turning the vision of a tokenised European financial market into reality.
