Pontes Launches on September 21, Connecting Central Bank Payments

The Eurosystem's distributed ledger technology (DLT) payment project, Pontes, will begin initial operations on September 21. This project aims to connect tokenized securities trading with the Eurosystem's TARGET services, providing an infrastructure for payments in central bank money. Pontes is designed as an interoperability infrastructure linking various market DLT platforms with TARGET services, focusing on utilizing central bank money as a settlement asset in the issuance, trading, and redemption of tokenized securities. There are two payment methods: market participants can use cash tokens that tokenize central bank money on the Eurosystem DLT or invoke TARGET's real-time gross settlement system (T2) payments from DLT. In the initial operation, the finality of cash payments is established when the fund transfer is completed in T2, with a hash link mechanism applied to ensure simultaneous settlement of securities and payments. Pontes aligns with the trend of securing payment finality and cash payment means in the tokenized asset market by connecting the central bank payment network with DLT-based wholesale trading. The European Central Bank has indicated that the initial launch of Pontes is expected in the third quarter of 2026, with initial services gradually expanding operational hours and adding functionalities.

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