Central Bank Money for Tokenized Securities Is Live: Pontes Launched on 21 September, and 2028 Is the Date to Plan Against

Executive Summary

Settling tokenized securities in central bank money is no longer a lab project. The Eurosystem launched Pontes on 21 September 2026. The ECB has accepted DLT-issued securities held in central securities depositories as collateral since 30 March 2026. The longer-term Appia blueprint is due in 2028, the same year the ECB expects Pontes to be fully implemented.

For an issuer of euro tokens, the planning question has changed. It is no longer whether a central bank cash leg will exist. It is which venue will offer it, when, and what your offering documents assume in the meantime. The token does not change, because Pontes is a settlement service, not a token standard. The payment side of the trade is what moves.

Key Takeaways

• Pontes launched on 21 September 2026 with 13 market participants, 4 DLT operators and the Deutsche Bundesbank onboarded. More are committed to connect.
• It offers two routes: cash tokens on the Eurosystem DLT platform, or T2, the Eurosystem’s real-time gross settlement system.
• Appia is a separate, longer-term design exercise with a blueprint due in 2028. Project Agorá is a BIS and IIF prototype for cross-border payments.
• Since 30 March 2026 the Eurosystem accepts marketable assets issued in CSDs using DLT services as collateral. Assets issued entirely on DLT are under study, with no date.
• 2028 is a planning horizon, not a compliance deadline.

First, What Is a Cash Leg?

Every trade in a security has two legs. One is the security moving from seller to buyer. The other is the money moving from buyer to seller. That second movement is the cash leg.

On a traditional market the legs run on different ledgers: securities at a depository, cash at a bank or the central bank. Tokenization can put both on one ledger, which raises a question the old system answered by default: what is the money? A stablecoin is a token issued by a private company. A commercial bank deposit is a claim on a bank, which can itself be tokenized. Central bank money is a claim on the central bank, which the Eurosystem calls the safest means of settlement.

The choice is practical. It decides who carries credit risk between trade and payment, which counterparties accept your token, and what your offering document has to say. Until 21 September 2026 a European issuer had no production service offering central bank money on the cash leg.

The Dates That Matter

The Governing Council set the two-track design on 1 July 2025: Pontes first, Appia longer term. It built on the Eurosystem’s 2024 exploratory work, in which 64 participants ran more than 50 trials between May and November 2024. Read in order, the sequence is short. A decision in mid-2025, a collateral rule in early 2026, a live service in autumn 2026, and 2028 as the year the pieces are meant to fit together.

How Pontes Settles

According to the ECB’s Pontes page, the solution links market DLT platforms and TARGET Services. It combines the strengths of three interoperability solutions the Eurosystem had previously explored into a single offer. Three design features matter for an issuer.

Two settlement routes. Market participants can settle on the Eurosystem DLT platform with cash tokens, or in T2. The ECB states that final settlement in central bank money for the cash leg is achieved once the corresponding transaction completes in T2.

All-or-none settlement. Delivery versus payment, and other transactions that need all-or-none settlement, run through the Hash-Link protocol, which the ECB describes as ensuring synchronized settlement across platforms.

Defined eligibility. The ECB lists who can take part at initial launch. Eligible market participants are entities with access to T2 under the TARGET Guideline. Eligible market DLT operators include CSDs authorized under the CSD Regulation, operators of DLT settlement or trading and settlement systems authorized under the DLT Pilot Regime, certain payment system operators, central counterparties authorized under EMIR, and licensed institutions that meet the supervision or assessment conditions on the page. The Eurosystem has also defined eligibility criteria for assets, which the ECB publishes through its focus session material.

The first DLT operators onboarded are Axiology, Cashlink, Clearstream and SWIAT. Among the market participants are Deutsche Bank, DZ Bank, KfW, the European Investment Bank and Santander.

The launch is a first step. The ECB says enhanced features and longer operating hours will come gradually. In a speech on 26 August 2026, before the launch, Piero Cipollone said the plan was 22.5 operating hours per business day, then a 24/7 service by mid-2028 with multi-currency capability, and only one-off onboarding fees at launch.

Pontes, Appia and Agorá: Three Different Jobs

The three names get mixed up. Here is what each does, according to its own publications.

Pontes is a service. It is live, and its job is narrow: connect DLT platforms to central bank money. Cipollone described it as a bridge that also makes private settlement assets mutually convertible, for example letting stablecoins settle in fiat currency directly via DLT. In that framing it complements private settlement assets.

Appia is a design exercise. It does not settle anything. The ECB will assess configurations of DLT networks, including a single shared network against multiple interconnected ones, and plans a blueprint in 2028. Cipollone listed its work areas as asset interoperability and standards, monetary policy and collateral management, future infrastructure for tokenized central bank money, cross-border transactions, and the legal framework and resilience. He said the architecture is not predetermined. Danmarks Nationalbank takes part alongside the Eurosystem.

Agorá is a prototype. It is convened by the BIS and the Institute of International Finance, not run as a Eurosystem program. The seven participating central banks are the Banque de France for the Eurosystem, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of Korea, the Bank of Mexico, the Swiss National Bank, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Bank of England. The prototype combines tokenized commercial bank deposits and tokenized central bank reserves on a shared platform for multi-currency cross-border payments with atomic settlement. The report puts other tokenized asset classes out of scope and says the prototype does not prioritize production-grade capabilities such as scalability or cyber security. It does point toward the issuer’s world: it says the work creates a foundation to unlock the cash leg for broader transactions such as cross-border capital markets, and lists integration with tokenized securities for delivery versus payment as a possible later capability.

Side by side: Pontes is the live service, Appia is the plan for the ecosystem around it by 2028, and Agorá is a payments prototype.

Our Reading: The Cash Leg Is Now a Planning Variable

By our reading, the 2028 convergence is the signal. Pontes is expected to be fully implemented by 2028. The Appia blueprint arrives in 2028. In his 26 August speech Cipollone gave mid-2028 as the target for a round-the-clock service. Three separate Eurosystem workstreams point at one year. An issuer structuring a euro instrument today is designing for a market in which central bank money is one of the settlement options, not a research topic.

By our reading, the quieter story is the collateral rule. The ECB release limits it to marketable assets issued in CSDs using DLT services, and states that eligibility includes availability for settlement in eligible securities settlement systems reachable via TARGET2-Securities. A token issued outside that structure is not covered, and the ECB has launched work on that wider case, in a staggered approach, without a date. The practical consequence: where a token is issued and held now affects whether it can be pledged as collateral, not only how it is distributed.

Both points are our interpretation of public documents, not statements by the ECB. This is not legal advice.

The Record View

In Stobox Intelligence an offering is a record, and every fact on it carries a source and a date. We treat the cash leg as one of those facts: the settlement asset (stablecoin, bank deposit or central bank money), the date it was true, the public document that says so, and an evidence tier that shows how strong that document is. Nothing is averaged. A venue that calls itself “Pontes-connected” is a dated, sourced claim.

Collateral and the ECB’s Own Purchases

On launch day the ECB announced preparatory work to invest a small part of its own funds in tokenized securities. Initial investments are to focus on euro-denominated securities issued by euro area governments, regional governments, agencies and European supranational institutions, settled in central bank money via Pontes. The Executive Board will decide details and timing. By our reading, this signals demand for sovereign and supranational tokenized paper first, with no stated size.

Scale: Small Today, Which Is the Point

In a speech on 23 March 2026, Cipollone cited Association for Financial Markets in Europe estimates that European issuers had placed close to EUR 4 billion in DLT-based fixed income since 2021. He put the Eurosystem’s 2024 exploratory work, across nine jurisdictions, at roughly EUR 1.6 billion of transactions.

By our reading, those numbers explain why Pontes is a first, limited service. For an issuer, the central bank money route is new and thin on volume: expect few connected venues at first, and check which hold your asset class.

What It Means for an Issuer

Settlement asset. For a euro-denominated token traded or settled on a connected venue, the cash leg can now be central bank money. By our reading of the eligibility lists, an issuer that is neither a T2 participant nor an eligible DLT operator would normally reach Pontes through a connected bank or operator.

Timing. Pontes is live with a core service, and features arrive step by step to 2028. Appia produces a blueprint, not a rulebook. The Agorá report sets no launch date.

What does not change. By our reading, a settlement route does not change how your instrument is classified, which investors may hold it, or the transfer rules and identity checks encoded in the token. Pontes is not a token standard, and the public pages we read name none. Whether a given token can reach Pontes depends on the CSD or DLT operator that holds the asset, which is a question for that operator.

Design Note: Stobox Orbit

Stobox Orbit, a permissioned tokenization protocol, is in development and running on testnet (Base Sepolia). It has no connection to Pontes or any Eurosystem infrastructure and makes no claim of regulatory compliance.

• Currency in the class. Orbit is designed to support share classes in USD, EUR and CHF from the start, EUR as the minimum, each holding its money in its own currency, so a EUR minimum on a EUR class needs no exchange rate.
• Unit equals obligation. In a closed-ended fund, one unit is designed to equal one unit of the class currency committed, so a transfer carries its unfunded obligation.
• No keys. Stobox holds no private keys. The API is designed to return an unsigned transaction for the holder to sign.
• Pseudonymous register. Holdings are visible per pseudonymous subject; names and identity documents are designed to stay off chain.

What to Do on Monday

1. Write down your settlement assumption. For every euro token on your plan, state the cash leg in one line: stablecoin, commercial bank deposit or central bank money. If the plan does not say, that is the gap.
2. Ask your venue or CSD three questions. Is it onboarded to Pontes or committed to connect, and by when? Which route does it use, cash tokens on the Eurosystem DLT platform or T2? Does it support your token’s transfer-restriction logic? The public sources do not say which assets each operator accepts, so this has to come from them.
3. Check where the asset is issued and held. If it sits in a CSD, the collateral rule applies from 30 March 2026 subject to the usual eligibility criteria. If it does not, note that the ECB’s work on that case has no date.
4. Set 2028 as the horizon, not as a deadline. It is the year for full Pontes implementation and the Appia blueprint. It is not a compliance date.
5. Take the access question to counsel. Before the route goes into an offering document, ask a qualified lawyer how your token reaches a Pontes-connected operator and whether any rule limits your path.

FAQ

What is the cash leg of a tokenized securities trade? The payment side: a stablecoin, a commercial bank deposit or central bank money. Pontes adds central bank money as an option.

Can a small issuer use Pontes directly? The ECB lists eligible participants as entities with T2 access, plus defined market DLT operators. By our reading, most small issuers would go through a connected bank or operator. This is not legal advice.

Is Pontes the same thing as Appia? No. Pontes launched on 21 September 2026. Appia delivers a blueprint in 2028. The ECB calls them parts of one strategy.

Does Project Agorá change anything for issuers now? Not yet. It is a prototype report for cross-border payments, and other tokenized asset classes are out of its scope.

To see how a settlement question looks as a record, look at Stobox Intelligence; Stobox Orbit’s documentation will follow when it is public.

Related reading in this series

• MiCA or MiFID: how to tell which regime your token falls under
• The DLT Pilot cap: what EU ministers decide on 9 October
• Also in this series, in the coming weeks: EU Inc and the 28th Regime, significant CASPs, commodity RWAs, GDPR and onchain registers, stablecoins against central bank money, and the 2027 scenarios.

Sources

Accessed 1 October 2026.

1. ECB press release, Eurosystem brings central bank money to tokenised finance, 21 September 2026: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/pr/date/2026/html/ecb.pr260921~e754847a7b.en.html
2. ECB press release, ECB to invest part of own funds in tokenised securities, with settlement via Pontes, 21 September 2026: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/pr/date/2026/html/ecb.pr260921_1~5a011ecbea.en.html
3. ECB, Pontes page: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/target/pontes/html/index.en.html
4. ECB press release, Eurosystem unveils Appia roadmap, 11 March 2026: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/pr/date/2026/html/ecb.pr260311~14ddf51a77.en.html
5. ECB, Appia page: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/dlt/appia/html/index.en.html
6. ECB press release on DLT-based assets as eligible collateral, 27 January 2026: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/pr/date/2026/html/ecb.pr260127_1~a946167ce1.en.html
7. ECB press release, dual-track DLT settlement strategy, 1 July 2025: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/pr/date/2025/html/ecb.pr250701~f4a98dd9dc.en.html
8. P. Cipollone, speech of 26 August 2026: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/date/2026/html/ecb.sp260826~3641116314.en.html
9. P. Cipollone, speech of 23 March 2026: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/date/2026/html/ecb.sp260323~a88f20c049.en.html
10. BIS and IIF, Project Agorá: a shared programmable platform for wholesale cross-border payments, 27 May 2026: https://www.bis.org/publications/project-agora-shared-programmable-platform-wholesale-cross-border-payments.pdf

This article is general information based on public documents. It is not legal advice. Consult qualified counsel before making decisions about a specific issuance.