European Central Bank's Pontes Distributed Ledger Project Set to Launch on September 21, 2026

The European Central Bank will launch the "Pontes" ecosystem, providing tokenized and other distributed ledger services for the European wholesale market. Pontes operates on the euro system DLT platform, allowing participants to settle transactions using cash tokens or through the existing real-time gross settlement system T2. The launch date is set for September 21, 2026, with announced operators including Clearstream, SWIAT, Cashlink, and Axiology, while more institutions are in line for registration. The project received approval from the ECB Governing Council in 2025, adopting a short-term plan "Pontes" and a long-term plan "Appia." Piero Cipollone, a member of the ECB Executive Board, stated that tokenized assets will be at the core of a new digital financial ecosystem, reshaping the financial value chain, but also facing risks such as fragmentation, loss of monetary anchoring, and external dependencies. Pontes aims to facilitate tokenized transactions settled in central bank money, while Appia supports the advancement of the public-private cooperation roadmap.

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