May 29, 2026 – Seven central banks and more than 40 financial institutions are now testing a tokenized unified ledger. Their goal is to cut the high costs and long delays that burden global cross-border payments today.
In Summary
BIS Project Agorá has entered real-value testing with seven central banks and more than 40 private institutions.
Cross-border payments cost an average of 6.5% per transaction, far above the UN Sustainable Development Goal of 3%.
Tokenized atomic settlement could replace a process that currently takes one to five business days.
Anti-money laundering and sanctions screening remain embedded within existing correspondent banking rails.
A comprehensive final project report is expected before the end of the first half of 2026.
The Bank for International Settlements has officially moved its most ambitious payments experiment into real-value testing. Project Agorá now spans seven central banks and more than 40 regulated financial institutions. It is the largest initiative in BIS Innovation Hub history. Their shared goal is clear: fix one of global finance’s most persistent problems. Cross-border payments remain slow, costly, and difficult to track.
What Is Project Agorá?
Project Agorá takes its name from the ancient Greek word for “marketplace.” The BIS first launched it in April 2024. It was designed to test whether tokenization could modernize wholesale cross-border payments. The BIS partnered with the Institute of International Finance (IIF) to bring the private sector together.
The project advanced through three distinct phases. The design phase ran throughout 2024. Prototype building then began in 2025. Active real-value testing commenced in January 2026. Furthermore, the Bank of Canada joined the initiative in late May 2026. This expanded the central bank participant list to nine institutions. A comprehensive final report is expected in the first half of 2026.
The True Cost of Moving Money Globally
The problem that Project Agorá addresses is well-documented. Cross-border payments impose a heavy financial burden worldwide. According to the BIS, drawing on World Bank data, the average cost of sending $200 stood at 6.5% in Q1 2025. This figure far exceeds the UN Sustainable Development Goal target of 3% by 2030. Even in South Asia, the region with the lowest remittance costs, fees average 4.8%.
Settlement speed is equally problematic. Cross-border transactions take between one and five business days to complete. By contrast, domestic transfers clear in seconds in most major economies. Additionally, the ECB reports that only 40% of international B2B transactions settle within one business day. Furthermore, correspondent banking networks have contracted by 20% since the mid-2000s, pushing costs higher and access lower.
How the Unified Ledger Works
At the center of Project Agorá is a unified ledger model developed by the BIS. The platform brings tokenized central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits onto a shared digital infrastructure. This approach allows banks in different jurisdictions to settle transactions simultaneously and securely.
The system uses atomic settlement. All components of a payment are complete at once or not at all. This design eliminates the reconciliation delays common in today’s correspondent banking chains. The system pre-confirms all required transaction details before executing the final settlement.
“Once you know you have everything to run the transaction, you settle it in one go.”
-Andréa Maechler, Deputy General Manager, Bank for International Settlements
Importantly, the project preserves existing compliance controls. Anti-money-laundering and sanctions-screening tools remain embedded in correspondent banking rails. Therefore, Project Agorá strengthens the existing system rather than replacing it. The BIS has stated this clearly: correspondent banking remains the foundation of global payments. This distinction sets Agorá apart from earlier decentralized finance proposals.
The Participants: A Global Coalition
The participant list reflects the project’s global ambition. Nine central banks from major currency jurisdictions are now involved. The group includes the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the European Central Bank, and the Bank of Japan. Additionally, the Bank of England, the Banque de France, the Swiss National Bank, the Bank of Mexico, and the Bank of Korea participate. The Bank of Canada joined most recently, in late May 2026.
On the private sector side, major global banks and payment networks have joined the initiative. JPMorgan, UBS, Deutsche Bank, Mastercard, Visa, HSBC, and Citi are among the key participants. Ledger Insights confirmed that 41 private-sector companies have joined in total. Together, these institutions oversee the world’s most significant reserve currencies and payment networks.
From Prototype to Real-Value Testing
Project Agorá followed a disciplined three-stage development path. The design phase ran through 2024. Prototype building then began in 2025. Real-value testing launched in January 2026. This progression marks a meaningful shift from concept to active practice.
CoinDesk confirmed that participants now plan to move beyond simulations toward real transactions. The system is compatible with the existing financial infrastructure. It works alongside SWIFT messaging protocols and ISO 20022 data standards. Consequently, banks do not need to rebuild their existing payment architecture. Instead, they can adopt tokenized settlement on top of familiar systems. This evolutionary approach makes adoption significantly more practical.
The Market Opportunity
The scale of the opportunity makes the initiative highly significant. The global cross-border payments market processed approximately $195 trillion in 2024. This market is projected to reach $320 trillion by 2032. Additionally, the industry generated $212.55 billion in annual revenue in 2024. Therefore, even modest efficiency gains could save billions of dollars globally each year.
Moreover, parallel tokenization efforts are accelerating across the financial sector. DTCC plans to tokenize stock and Treasury settlement by 2027. SWIFT moved its blockchain-based shared ledger to MVP status in March 2026. Nasdaq and the Intercontinental Exchange are also developing blockchain-based equity systems. These parallel developments suggest that tokenized finance is moving from experiment to infrastructure.
What Comes Next
The project’s final report is expected in the first half of 2026. That report will serve as the first public checkpoint for real-value testing. Tim Adams, head of the Institute of International Finance, expressed measured optimism. “It will benefit the entire financial system,” he said.
However, the BIS has not yet announced a timeline for commercial deployment. Project leaders have emphasized getting the system right over speed to market. The shift to real-value testing is nonetheless a significant milestone. If Project Agorá succeeds, it may define the next generation of global settlement infrastructure. Moreover, its compatibility with SWIFT and ISO 20022 signals a deliberate approach: evolution, not revolution.
