Project Agorá, a public-private collaboration exploring the tokenization of wholesale cross-border payments, has achieved a significant breakthrough, demonstrating an average payment initiation to settlement time of approximately 80 seconds. This finding emerged from real-value testing (RVT) detailed in a recent report by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), marking a substantial improvement over traditional cross-border transaction speeds.
The BIS report, updated on Thursday (July 30), confirmed that the RVT was conducted in a controlled environment in July. During this testing phase, 28 private-sector financial institutions and central banks spanning Asia, Europe, and North America participated, executing transactions in a selection of currencies. The total value of these transactions reached about 800,000 Swiss francs, equivalent to approximately $990,000. The RVT encompassed 17 distinct transaction scenarios, with individual values ranging from 9,000 Swiss francs (about $11,100) to 125,000 Swiss francs ($155,000).
BIS underscored the importance of this milestone, stating, “RVT marked an important milestone for Project Agorá, demonstrating the feasibility of settling real-value transactions on a multicurrency programmable and shared platform using tokenized reserves and tokenized deposits.” Beyond the rapid 80-second settlement time, the testing revealed that tokenization and atomic settlement could deliver enhanced transparency. Participants specifically valued the end-to-end visibility of payment status and routing, alongside the platform’s capability to support corporate payment processing. The issued tokens during the testing represented real monetary value, reflecting central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits, further validating the practical application of the prototype.
The prototype’s robustness was further evidenced by its capacity to support a diverse range of cross-border payment use cases. These included corporate and interbank single- and dual-currency payments, payment-versus-payment (PVP) transactions, and intragroup bank transfers. Crucially, the testing also demonstrated the platform’s ability to interoperate seamlessly with various external systems across different jurisdictions, highlighting its potential for broad adoption within the global financial ecosystem. BIS affirmed that “RVT demonstrated the feasibility of conducting real-value transactions on the Project Agorá platform under realistic operating conditions.”
The concept underpinning Project Agorá was initially proposed by the BIS itself. An earlier report from May indicated that Project Agorá had already delivered a prototype capable of combining tokenized commercial bank deposits with “the trust and safety” of tokenized central bank reserves on a shared platform. The successful real-value testing in July builds upon this foundation, moving closer to practical implementation. According to the updated report, testing is slated to continue as Project Agorá progresses, indicating an ongoing commitment to refining and expanding the capabilities of this innovative payment solution.
The demonstration of 80-second cross-border payment settlements through Project Agorá represents a pivotal advancement for the global financial infrastructure. By proving the viability of tokenized reserves and deposits on a shared, multicurrency platform under realistic conditions, BIS and its collaborators are paving the way for significantly faster, more transparent, and efficient international transactions, potentially reshaping the future of wholesale payments.
