ECB Pontes: DLT settlement in central bank money

Central bank money is money held as a claim on the central bank itself, such as a bank's account at the Eurosystem, and it carries no credit risk on a commercial bank. Pontes, launched by the Eurosystem on 21 September 2026 (external site), lets wholesale transactions in tokenised assets settle in euro central bank money. Tokenised assets are securities recorded as digital tokens on a distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform, a shared database kept in step among several parties.

Pontes connects DLT platforms to the TARGET Services, the Eurosystem's infrastructure for payments and settlement, according to the European Central Bank (ECB) (external site). The cash leg of a tokenised trade therefore settles in the same money as other wholesale euro payments.

With Pontes, the cash leg settles in central bank money and is synchronised with the asset leg on the DLT platform, according to the ECB (external site). This allows delivery versus payment (DVP), in which the securities move only if the cash moves.

As an example, a bank buying a tokenised bond worth EUR 10 million pays through Pontes, and the bond and the EUR 10 million change hands together or not at all, the all-or-none settlement that the ECB describes (external site).

At first, settlement is final once the matching movement of funds is reflected in T2, the Eurosystem's real-time gross settlement system (ECB press release (external site)). A later stage brings settlement finality on the Eurosystem's own DLT (ECB timeline (external site)).

Pontes serves participants in the TARGET Services and the operators of DLT platforms that connect to it; an initial group of both completed onboarding at launch, according to the ECB (external site). Banks, custodians and market infrastructures are the entity types concerned. Roles directly affected include:

• Settlements Analyst: tokenised trades settle with DVP across a DLT platform and central bank money.
• Treasury Operations Analyst: euro balances for Pontes settlement are funded in T2 within its operating hours.
• Treasury Analyst: liquidity planning includes the cash needed to settle tokenised transactions.
• Custody Operations Analyst: tokenised securities held for clients settle against central bank money.

Pontes went live on 21 September 2026 with an initial group of market participants and DLT operators (ECB press release (external site)). The status is therefore in force.

The ECB timeline of 22 July 2026 (external site) lists initial enhancements for 2027: operating hours aligned with T2, settlement finality on the Eurosystem DLT and the inclusion of tokenised balances in reserve requirements. The step is recorded as expected in 2027, without a day.

The ECB press release (external site) expects full implementation by 2028, and the timeline (external site) names 24/7 opening as the aim of the enhanced product. This date is also expected.

Pontes is the short-term part of the Eurosystem's work on tokenised finance. The longer-term initiative, Appia, has its own roadmap and is due to deliver a blueprint by 2028 (ECB press release on Appia (external site)).

The TARGET Services already settle euro transactions in central bank money. Pontes extends their reach to assets recorded on DLT platforms, as the ECB sets out (external site).