BIS: Project Agorá has delivered on its objectives

Project Agorá has successfully demonstrated that a shared ledger can address many of the pain points it was set up to overcome, according to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), which led the project.

A report published by BIS today confirmed that the project showed how a shared distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform can support safe settlement in a tokenised environment and address long-standing challenges in wholesale cross-border payments.

Project Agorá was launched as a collaboration between BIS and the Institute of International Finance (IIF) to test whether a multi-currency settlement mechanism that leverages tokenisation and programmability could overcome structural inefficiencies that make cross-border payments slow, costly and opaque.

Today’s report stated that this prototype and its successful testing lay the groundwork for next-generation solutions.

“The prototype illustrates how shared infrastructure, interoperable tokens, programmable workflows, atomic settlement and privacy-preserving execution can address many of the well-known pain points in cross-border payments,” it said.

The report also highlighted that large-scale public-private collaboration is essential to unlock new potential as other areas for future exploration are identified.

Participants in the project include the Bank of England, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Bank of France (representing the Eurosystem), the Bank of Japan, the Bank of Korea, the Bank of Mexico, the Swiss National Bank and more than 40 private sector financial institutions.