The European Central Bank launched Pontes on 21 September to settle wholesale distributed-ledger transactions in central-bank money. The service connects eligible market DLT platforms to the Eurosystem’s TARGET Services. The ECB said an initial group of 13 market participants, including Deutsche Bank and Santander, and four market DLT operators, including Clearstream, had completed onboarding.
Pontes is the first initiative under the Eurosystem’s strategic programme to make central bank money fit for a tokenised future. It builds on the outcome of the Eurosystem’s 2024 tests using DLT for central bank money settlement. The service is aimed at wholesale transactions in tokenised assets.
LINKING DLT TO TARGET SERVICES
The ECB said Pontes can settle eligible DLT transactions through two routes. One uses central-bank-money cash tokens issued on a Eurosystem DLT platform, while the other settles in T2, the Eurosystem’s real-time gross settlement system. In both cases, the cash leg receives settlement finality in T2.
The design allows market platforms to retain their own distributed ledgers while connecting the cash side to central-bank infrastructure. Delivery-versus-payment transactions are enabled through a Hash-Link protocol, which the ECB said ensures synchronised settlement across platforms.
FROM PILOT TO BROADER OPERATION
The ECB said the initial group was ready to start using Pontes immediately, and additional participants are committed to connecting in the coming months. Work on a broader integrated ecosystem for DLT-based financial services continues under the Eurosystem’s Appia initiative, which aims to deliver a blueprint by 2028.
The next milestone is the service’s planned expansion, with the ECB saying that enhanced features and longer operating hours will be introduced gradually and full implementation is expected by 2028.
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