The European Central Bank launched Pontes on 21 September 2026, creating a new Eurosystem route for settling wholesale tokenised-asset transactions using central bank money. It is the first initiative under the Eurosystem’s strategic programme to make central bank money fit for a tokenised future, building on DLT tests the Eurosystem ran in 2024, in which public- and private-sector participants said access to a risk-free settlement asset was crucial to wider adoption of the technology.
Central bank money is generally treated as the risk-free settlement asset for financial-market transactions. The ECB’s move addresses one of the barriers to wider use of tokenised finance: access to a risk-free settlement asset. Christine Lagarde, ECB President, said: “The Eurosystem is working to enable a more integrated, innovative and resilient European financial market in the digital age. We will continue to make progress in close collaboration with the market.”
Rollout runs in stages to 2028
Fourteen market participants have completed onboarding: an initial group of 13, including ABANCA, BayernLB, Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations, Cecabank, Deutsche Bank, DekaBank, DZ Bank, the European Investment Bank, Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau, Memo Bank, NRW.BANK, Santander and Société Générale, plus the Deutsche Bundesbank, which has also onboarded as a market participant. Four DLT operators, Axiology, Cashlink, Clearstream and SWIAT, have completed onboarding alongside them.
The ECB says the initial group has completed onboarding and is ready to start using Pontes immediately, with additional participants committed to connecting in the coming months.
Pontes will initially offer a core set of services, with enhanced features and longer operating hours introduced gradually before full implementation is expected by 2028, the ECB said. Piero Cipollone, a member of the ECB’s Executive Board, said: “Pontes brings the stability and trust of central bank money to the European tokenised finance ecosystem. It will give an important advantage to help it scale.”
Industry reaction points to the next bottleneck
Richard Baker, founder and chief executive of Tokenovate, a firm that builds settlement infrastructure for tokenised markets, said the launch brings tokenised settlement closer to the core of the euro area’s financial infrastructure. “Connecting DLT-based assets with TARGET Services means transactions can settle against central bank money, giving banks a more scalable route to using tokenised assets within established market structures,” he said.
Baker said the next constraint is not settlement itself but what comes after it. “While the service will initially operate within existing market hours, the longer-term opportunity is to support more continuous, potentially 24/7, settlement,” he said.
“As adoption grows, that will make interoperability across platforms, custodial networks and existing settlement systems even more important,” he said. “Greater synchronisation between cash, assets and contractual obligations will be essential if tokenisation is to reduce reconciliation, release liquidity sooner and enable a more efficient transition towards programmable, atomic settlement.”
Artem Ponomarev, founder and chief executive of XPlace, a platform that lets people borrow against their crypto holdings rather than sell them, said the launch marks a broader shift. “The ECB’s launch of Pontes marks the growing shift of tokenisation away from the fringes of financial markets and into the infrastructure that supports them,” he said.
Ponomarev said the bigger question now is what gets built on top of that infrastructure. “Tokenised assets will need the same financial services that traditional assets have had for years, including payments, lending, and access to liquidity,” he said. “The real opportunity is to make digital assets work harder for the people who own them. Ownership should be the starting point, not the end of the journey.”
