ECB's Pontes now settles tokenised trades in central bank money, with 24/7 hours planned
Pontes went live on 21 September 2026. ECB board member Isabel Schnabel set out its next steps in London on 1 October, and the Governing Council published its go-live record on 2 October.
Wholesale trades in tokenised assets in the euro area can now be settled in central bank money through Pontes, a Eurosystem service that went live on 21 September 2026. ECB Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel set out where it goes next in a presentation at the Bank of England on 1 October, and the ECB’s Governing Council published its record of the launch decisions on 2 October.
What Pontes does
According to Schnabel’s slides, Pontes combines a bridge solution with a Eurosystem distributed ledger (DLT). It offers a dual settlement model, via TARGET2 or a Eurosystem DLT, so that transactions on market DLT networks for tokenised securities, tokenised deposits and stablecoins can be settled in tokenised central bank money. The planned enhancements are 24/7 availability and decentralised programmability.
The ECB says Pontes starts with a core set of services. Longer operating hours and more features will be added gradually, with full implementation expected by 2028.
Who is connected
The ECB’s launch release named the first group that had completed onboarding: market participants including Deutsche Bank, Santander, Société Générale, DZ Bank, KfW and the European Investment Bank, and four market DLT operators: Axiology, Cashlink, Clearstream and SWIAT. More participants are committed to connecting in the coming months.
The Governing Council record shows it approved the legal agreement for the initial launch on 11 August 2026. That agreement includes terms and conditions for market participants and DLT operators. On 11 September the Market Infrastructure Board recommended keeping the 21 September launch date.
Why it matters to traders and platforms
Schnabel’s slides make the case that tokenisation allows settlement to be programmable and atomic, meaning both legs of a trade settle together or not at all. They also set out the ECB’s aim of keeping central bank money as the anchor of the system as tokenised deposits and stablecoins grow. For exchanges, custodians and crypto platforms building tokenised products in euros, Pontes is the first official route to settle those trades in central bank money rather than in a private token.
“Pontes brings the stability and trust of central bank money to the European tokenised finance ecosystem,” said Piero Cipollone, a member of the ECB’s Executive Board.
What happens next
Work on a wider DLT ecosystem continues under the Eurosystem’s Appia project, which aims to deliver a blueprint by 2028. Schnabel’s slides show Appia comparing several designs, from a single shared ledger to interconnected networks.
- ECB: Decisions taken by the Governing Council of the ECB (in addition to decisions setting interest rates), 2 October 2026
- ECB: Isabel Schnabel, Central banks on-chain (slides), Bank of England, 1 October 2026
- ECB press release: Eurosystem brings central bank money to tokenised finance, 21 September 2026
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