The European Central Bank is moving to position tokenised finance at the heart of Europe’s digital asset market, with Executive Board member Piero Cipollone calling for common standards, cooperation and legal certainty to enable safe settlements in central bank money.
The ECB’s Governing Council approved the “Pontes” ecosystem in 2025, using a two-track approach. The first track, Pontes, will provide a short-term market offering including a pilot phase; the second track, Appia, is focused on a long-term solution. The official go-live date is scheduled for 21 September 2026.
Participants will be able to settle transactions on the Eurosystem DLT platform using cash tokens or through T2, the Eurosystem’s real-time gross settlement system. Among the first operators to complete registration are Clearstream, SWIAT, Cashlink and Axiology, with more expected to join.
Speaking at the Deutsche Bundesbank’s Symposium on the future of payments, Cipollone said tokenized assets will be at the center of a new digital finance ecosystem that allows issuers, investors and intermediaries to innovate. He warned that fragmentation, loss of the monetary anchor and external dependence are key risks, and said Pontes and Appia are making tokenized transactions in central bank money a reality. “Two years ago, I argued that Europe had a unique opportunity to build an integrated capital market for digital assets from the outset. Today, we are delivering on that vision,” he stated.
