The European Central Bank has launched Pontes, a new platform allowing eligible financial institutions to settle transactions involving tokenised assets in central-bank money.
Pontes links distributed-ledger technology (DLT) market infrastructure with the Eurosystem’s TARGET Services, the payment systems used for euro transactions. The platform is intended to provide a central-bank settlement option for wholesale digital-asset markets.
Its introduction gives financial institutions an alternative to using stablecoins or tokenised commercial-bank deposits when settling wholesale transactions involving tokenised assets.
The ECB’s initiative is separate from the retail digital euro project. The digital euro is scheduled to enter a one-year pilot in the second half of 2027, with possible issuance in 2029.
Pontes is therefore focused on the infrastructure used by financial institutions, rather than on a digital payment instrument for consumers.
