Project Agorá, major BIS Innovation Hub initiative

Project Agorá (Greek for “marketplace”) is a major BIS Innovation Hub initiative launched in April 2024. It is a public-private collaboration exploring the tokenization of wholesale central bank money (wCBDC or tokenized reserves) and commercial bank deposits on a multi-currency unified ledger—a programmable platform—to improve wholesale cross-border payments while preserving the two-tier monetary system (central banks and commercial banks).

It builds directly on the BIS’s 2023 unified ledger concept and tests how tokenization & smart contracts can enable atomic settlement, 24/7 operations, reduced correspondent banking frictions, and better compliance—directly addressing CBDC interoperability challenges discussed in prior contexts (e.g., bridging public Ethereum tokenized collateral with permissioned wCBDC systems in pilots like Société Générale–Banque de France).

Objectives

• Demonstrate a unified ledger that integrates tokenized commercial bank deposits and tokenized wCBDC for faster, cheaper, more transparent, and less risky cross-border wholesale payments.
• Enable atomic transactions (simultaneous payment and settlement in central bank money) to eliminate credit/settlement risk.
• Streamline compliance (AML/CFT, sanctions screening) and pre-validation via shared protocols and programmability.
• Preserve correspondent banking structure and depositor-bank relationships while adding smart contract composability (e.g., conditional payments, collateral management).
• Analyze legal/regulatory gaps across jurisdictions on tokenization, settlement finality, and compliance. bis.org

It is not building a production system but a technical prototype for experimental testing of feasibility, desirability, and viability.

ParticipantsCentral banks (7, covering five major reserve currencies):

• Bank of France (representing the Eurosystem)
• Bank of Japan
• Bank of Korea
• Bank of Mexico
• Swiss National Bank
• Bank of England
• Federal Reserve Bank of New York (via NY Innovation Center)

Private sector (40+ regulated financial institutions, convened by the Institute of International Finance – IIF): Includes major global banks and infrastructure providers such as BBVA, BNP Paribas, Citi, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, Lloyds Banking Group, MUFG, Santander, Standard Chartered, UBS, SWIFT, Euroclear, SIX Digital Exchange (SDX), Visa, Mastercard, and others (full list includes regional players like Hana Bank, Shinhan Bank, Mizuho, etc.). Selection emphasized diversity in size, geography, business models, and cross-border expertise.

Technical Concept

• Unified ledger: A programmable platform (described as a “network of networks” in some updates) where tokenized deposits and wCBDC coexist.
• Tokenization: Digital representations of commercial bank deposits and central bank reserves enable secure, verifiable, atomic transactions.
• Smart contracts & programmability: Merge messaging, reconciliation, and settlement into one operation; support conditional/always-on payments and new transaction types.
• Focus: Wholesale (not retail) cross-border payments; technology-neutral but leverages DLT for efficiency gains without replacing existing infrastructure.

This approach mitigates interoperability fragmentation by placing tokenized private and public money on the same ledger, reducing reliance on bridges or bespoke integrations (unlike some Ethereum + DL3S pilots).

Timeline and Current Status (as of March 2026)

• April 2024: Announced and launched.
• May–September 2024: Call for private sector participation; partners selected; design phase begins.
• 2025: Moved from design to prototype building (progress reported September 2025).
• January 2026: Entered user testing / sandbox / live experimentation phase (major milestone per BIS and Reuters).
• H1 2026: First phase (design + prototype + testing) concludes with a public report on lessons learned, prototype design, testing results, and legal/regulatory analysis. Further work may follow based on partner decisions.

As of late March 2026, the project is actively in the testing phase with no final report yet released.

Relevance to Broader Context

Project Agorá directly tackles the CBDC interoperability challenges (ledger heterogeneity, atomicity, compliance, fragmentation) highlighted earlier. It offers a potential “network of networks” model that could complement or scale Ethereum-based repo pilots (e.g., involving Banque de France, UBS, Société Générale) by providing regulated, programmable settlement rails for tokenized assets in high-value wholesale flows. A successful prototype could influence how tokenized repo collateral settles atomically with wCBDC or tokenized deposits. For official sources, see the BIS project page (updated October 2025) and FAQ PDF. A full report is expected soon in H1 2026. Developments are experimental and aim to deliver public goods for central banks and the financial system.