ECB deploys Pontes platform to settle wholesale tokenized assets in central-bank money

The European Central Bank has put Pontes into operation, a wholesale settlement platform that connects market distributed-ledger technology to the Eurosystem’s TARGET Services to enable settlement of tokenized assets in central-bank money. ECB President Christine Lagarde announced the go-live at a Eurogroup meeting, describing the system as a digital-euro capability for banks to transact using tokenized instruments on DLT.

Pontes is designed for use by eligible banks and market infrastructure providers rather than retail users, providing a central-bank-money option for the cash leg of tokenized bond, fund and other wholesale asset trades. By offering this option, the ECB aims to reduce the need for market participants to rely solely on private stablecoins or tokenized commercial-bank deposits for settlement.

The new platform forms part of the ECB’s broader effort to keep central-bank money central in an increasingly tokenized financial ecosystem and will be rolled out in stages alongside the Appia initiative, the central bank’s longer-term program for wholesale tokenization. Pontes is explicitly separate from the retail digital euro project, which the ECB plans to pilot for one year starting in the second half of 2027 as preparation for a potential issuance in 2029.

For the retail CBDC workstream, the ECB selected 36 banks and payment firms in July to join the upcoming pilot, which will be tested across the ECB and 19 euro-area national central banks and cover online and offline person-to-person transfers as well as in-store and e-commerce payments. While the EU’s legislation for a digital euro is still under discussion, the ECB has cited the growing use of private dollar-backed stablecoins such as Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC as a motivation to move forward on CBDC development.