ECB launches Appia workstreams on tokenised deposits, securities and governance

The Eurosystem is transitioning from consultation to active construction on its next-generation tokenised financial infrastructure, branded Appia. The European Central Bank (ECB) has outlined several workstreams that have either already begun or are about to start, with stakeholders soon to be invited to engage on three priority topics: tokenised deposits and payments, tokenised securities, and shared network governance. These will sit alongside the Appia Contact Group, which launched in September, and a planned standards stakeholder group.

A central unresolved tension concerns tokenised deposits. ECB executive board member Piero Cipollone raised the issue directly with the European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) committee, questioning whether tokenised deposits would be regulated along national lines, which risks fragmenting the single market again, or receive a unified European framework. That legal gap is also complicating efforts by the Commercial Bank Money Token (CBMT) consortium, which operates in the same space without a pan-European definition to anchor to.

On the central bank side, work has begun on tokenised central bank money and on-chain collateral mobilisation, described as laying groundwork for future experimentation. The existing Pontes system already offers cash tokens and real-time gross settlement (RTGS) settlement, though its current feature set is acknowledged as basic, and an upgrade roadmap has been published. Cross-cutting testing is scheduled for 2027, with the 2028 blueprint intended to reflect components already trialled rather than abstract architecture, giving the path to production greater credibility.