The Governing Council of the European Central Bank gave its approval for an additional group of participants to test distributed ledger technology (DLT) for the settlement of wholesale transactions in central bank money. In total, 48 private firms from the financial sector and three central banks will take part in the second wave of the Eurosystem’s exploratory work.
From July to November 2024, the group will explore specific use cases, joining a first group of participants who have already been testing since 13 May. This second wave will broaden the scope of the exploratory work and will cover (i) domestic payments within the euro area with mock settlement, (ii) a wide set of securities-related use cases with both real and mock settlement, and (iii) foreign exchange payment-versus-payment (PvP) transactions with other central banks with mock settlement. Meanwhile, nine participants from the first group will add further use cases and interoperability-type solutions.
The high number of participants shows that there is strong interest in how TARGET Services and DLT platforms could interact and in the benefits that such technologies could bring to the wholesale financial market.
The invitation to express interest in taking part in the Eurosystem’s exploratory work was launched in December 2023. The tests include trials with actual settlement in central bank money and experiments with mock settlement in a test environment. In May 2024, the first experiment was conducted successfully. It covered the simulated delivery-versus-payment (DvP) settlement of government bonds in a secondary market transaction against central bank money.
The three Eurosystem interoperability-type solutions will also be tested as part of Project Meridian FX. This project was launched by the Eurosystem and London centres of the Bank for International Settlements Innovation Hub, together with the Bank of England. Its aim is to develop a DLT-capable interoperability mechanism for foreign exchange transactions. The Bank of England will act as the foreign central bank for tests with the Eurosystem solutions.
Source: European Central Bank
NEWSLETTER SIGN UP
And receive exclusive articles on securities markets
It's been a month since we had our Women In Finance Awards in New York City at the Plaza! Take a look back tab some moments, and nominate for our upcoming awards in Mexico City and Singapore here: https://www.marketsmedia.com/category/events/
4
Citadel Securities told the SEC that trading tokenized equities should remain under existing market rules, a position that drew responses from various crypto industry groups. @ShannyBasar for @MarketsMedia:
SEC Commissioner Mark Uyeda argued that private assets belong in retirement plans, saying diversified alts can improve risk-adjusted returns and that the answer to optimal exposure “is not zero.” @ShannyBasar reporting for @MarketsMedia:
COO of the Year Award winner! 🏆
Discover how Jennifer Kaiser of Marex earned the 2025 Women in Finance COO of the Year recognition.
Related articles
-
They are laying the foundation for regulated, interoperable digital money that moves across markets.
-
Interest is growing in new forms of digital money based on tokens transacted on public blockchains.
-
More than 100 crypto-linked ETFs are expected to launch in 2026.
-
The ETF platform was introduced in 2023 with six strategies.
-
The statement is an interim step while the SEC continues to consider the issues.