28 major global banks completed BIS-coordinated Agora pilot testing tokenized cross-border payments, settling transfers in ~80 seconds versus traditional systems.
Macro & Markets ·
Twenty-eight major banks including JPMorgan, Citi, and UBS completed a live pilot test moving roughly $1 million across six currencies using tokenized central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits, with settlements averaging about 80 seconds. The Bank for International Settlements coordinated Project Agorá, which processed the transactions on a shared ledger to reduce settlement risk and improve payment traceability compared to traditional correspondent banking systems that require multiple intermediaries and separate record-keeping.