BIS-Led Project Agorá Completes Million-Dollar Cross-Border Tokenized Payment Test

According to CoinDesk, Project Agorá, led by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), recently completed a cross-border payment test with real funds. Participants included 28 commercial banks such as JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, UBS, Deutsche Bank, and Standard Chartered, as well as five central banks. The test processed approximately $1 million (about 800,000 Swiss francs) in real transactions, covering six currencies: the US dollar, euro, pound sterling, Japanese yen, Swiss franc, and South Korean won. The test utilized tokenized central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits, settling funds on a shared ledger with an average settlement time of about 80 seconds. Unlike traditional cross-border payments that require intermediation by multiple correspondent banks, the platform achieved shared single ownership records and supports synchronized settlement of bilateral foreign exchange, effectively reducing principal risk. The BIS stated that the platform can operate in parallel with existing payment systems, rather than replacing them.