Bank for International Settlements (BIS)

Project Agorá: A Shared Programmable Platform for Wholesale Cross-Border Payments

Project Agorá, a joint initiative of the Bank for International Settlements and the Institute of International Finance, brings together seven central banks and more than 40 regulated financial institutions to build a shared, programmable platform for wholesale cross‑border payments. The prototype runs on a two‑layer blockchain: a unifying ledger records tokenised commercial‑bank deposits, while jurisdiction‑specific ledgers hold tokenised central‑bank reserves, preserving each sovereign’s autonomy. By aligning compliance checks before liquidity is committed, the system achieves 24/7 atomic settlement, eliminating failed payments and settlement risk. During development, the consortium demonstrated that tokenisation does not change the legal nature of money and can operate within existing regulatory frameworks. Privacy‑preserving techniques satisfy stringent data‑sharing requirements, and the collaboration succeeded in aligning diverse institutions around a common settlement architecture. If scaled, the platform could dramatically cut costs, speed up settlement times, and reduce reconciliation burdens for global trade, positioning tokenised reserves as a cornerstone of the next generation of resilient, regulated cross‑border payment networks.