The European Central Bank (ECB) has approved a dual-track initiative aimed at integrating distributed ledger technology (DLT) into the eurozone’s financial infrastructure, marking a significant step toward modernizing settlement processes with central bank money.
The short-term track, named Pontes, will serve as a bridge between blockchain-based DLT platforms and the Eurosystem’s TARGET Services, which facilitate payment and securities transactions across the eurozone. A pilot program for Pontes is scheduled to launch by the end of the third quarter of 2026. This initiative builds on insights from the ECB’s 2024 exploratory phase, which included over 50 DLT experiments and 64 participants.
“This decision reflects the Eurosystem’s commitment to fostering innovation without compromising the safety and efficiency of financial market infrastructures,” the ECB stated.
The second, longer-term track—Appia—focuses on developing an integrated European ecosystem for wholesale central bank settlements using DLT, with global interoperability in mind. Appia will involve ongoing research in collaboration with both public and private stakeholders to explore the broader applications of blockchain in financial infrastructure.
To support both initiatives, the ECB will establish dedicated market contact groups. A call for expressions of interest to join the Pontes group will be published soon, ensuring continued industry engagement and feedback.
The announcement comes as global central banks increasingly explore DLT’s potential to enhance settlement speed and control. Notably, a 2023 Bank of England initiative through the BIS Innovation Hub demonstrated how DLT could reduce the cost and time of real-time gross settlement (RTGS) systems by enhancing connectivity between financial infrastructures.
Alongside the launch announcement, the ECB also released a detailed report on its DLT trials, which showed strong demand for settlement of tokenized assets in central bank money. More than €1.6 billion (approximately $1.88 billion) was settled during the test phase. The experiments explored various models, including the Trigger Solution, TIPS Hash-Link, and full DLT interoperability.
The ECB concluded that DLT could significantly reduce fragmentation and inefficiencies in capital markets through programmable and atomic settlement. However, it stressed the need for standardized processes, a harmonized legal framework, and early interoperability with TARGET Services.
