Over 40 private companies join the BIS’s Project Agorá: improving the efficiency of international payments and developing programmable financial platforms are the goals.
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has launched the design phase of Project Agorá, involving 41 private companies from the financial sector. The project, initiated in April by the BIS together with seven central banks, will explore the integration of tokenized commercial bank deposits with CBDCs on a unified financial platform.
Participating companies
The participating companies include Visa, Mastercard, SWIFT, JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, the Swiss platform SIX Digital Exchange, and the Japanese group Monex. The Institute of International Finance, a representative organization of the financial services sector, has been chosen to coordinate the participating companies.
Objective and structure of Project Agorá
The central banks involved in the project include the Bank of France (representing the Eurosystem), the Bank of Japan, the Bank of Korea, the Bank of Mexico, the Swiss National Bank, the Bank of England, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Project Agorá aims to address structural inefficiencies in international payment systems using the “unified ledger” concept developed by the BIS.
The unified ledger is described as a structure with open architecture, programmability, and interoperability. It includes separate sections for CBDCs and tokenized bank deposits, with smart contracts facilitating their interaction. Additionally, interaction between multiple unified ledgers will be possible.
The project will focus on customer verification and anti-money laundering (AML) procedures, which are currently performed multiple times by intermediaries involved in a transaction. This could help reduce duplications and improve the overall efficiency of the system.
Participants in the project are tasked with identifying legal and regulatory issues related to tokenization and CBDCs in the seven represented countries. A final report on Project Agorá is expected by the end of 2025.
