Bank for International Settlements to test prototype for digital cross-border payments

The Bank for International Settlements said a tokenization prototype under Project Agorá demonstrated the possibility of atomic settlement for wholesale cross-border transactions. BIS and the Institute of International Finance said the public-private initiative was designed to address settlement delays, counterparty risk, and operational friction in multi-currency wholesale payments. According to the BIS, the prototype used a layered architecture that lets central banks maintain operational autonomy while connecting through a shared interoperable platform, and legal analysis found settlement finality can be achieved across all seven participating jurisdictions, although further technical, operational, and contractual work is still required. BIS also said privacy can be protected at both balance and transaction levels, and that the project will move to real-value testing with selected currencies while the Bank of Canada joins as the eighth central bank participant.