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The Bank for International Settlements is set to begin real-value testing on Project Agorá, its blockchain-based cross-border payments initiative, with participation from seven major central banks and a roster of the world's largest commercial banks and payment networks.
Why it matters
Project Agorá runs on a shared "unified ledger" — a single technical environment where tokenized central bank reserves settle atomically against commercial bank deposits, eliminating the chain of nostro-vostro intermediaries that makes today's correspondent banking slow and expensive. The participating central banks — the New York Fed, ECB, Bank of Japan, Bank of England, Bank of Korea, Bank of Mexico and the Swiss National Bank — anchor the wholesale side of the ledger with their own tokenized liabilities, while JPMorgan, UBS, Visa and Mastercard wire the commercial-bank leg.
Atomic settlement is the technical prize: either both legs of a cross-border payment complete in the same transaction, or neither does, which removes the intraday credit risk and trapped liquidity that plagues today's SWIFT-based rails.
Market impact
A live test with real money — not synthetic flows — is the credibility threshold central banks have been waiting for before tokenized reserve settlement leaves the sandbox. If the pilot clears, it positions the unified-ledger architecture as a viable candidate for the next generation of wholesale cross-border infrastructure, with the participating payment networks already positioned to operate the retail-facing rails on top of it.
Frequently asked questions
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What is Project Agorá?
Project Agorá is a Bank for International Settlements initiative that uses a shared "unified ledger" to enable atomic settlement of tokenized central bank reserves against commercial bank deposits for cross-border payments.
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Which central banks are participating?
The New York Fed, ECB, Bank of Japan, Bank of England, Bank of Korea, Bank of Mexico and the Swiss National Bank are anchoring the wholesale side of the unified ledger with tokenized reserves.
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Which commercial banks and payment networks are involved?
JPMorgan, UBS, HSBC, Santander and Deutsche Bank cover the commercial-bank leg, while Visa and Mastercard are wired in on the payment-network side.
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What does atomic settlement mean here?
Atomic settlement means both legs of a cross-border payment — the tokenized central bank reserve transfer and the commercial bank deposit leg — complete in the same transaction, or neither does, removing intraday credit risk and trapped liquidity.
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Why is the move to real-value testing significant?
Real-value testing means live tokenized transactions rather than synthetic flows, which is the credibility threshold central banks had set for wholesale tokenized infrastructure to leave the sandbox and move toward production.
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