ECB's Pontes DLT settlement platform set for September go-live

The Eurosystem’s Pontes platform, which settles distributed-ledger transactions in central bank money, is confirmed for a September launch, according to European Central Bank Executive Board member Piero Cipollone. Speaking at a Bundesbank symposium, Cipollone said early adopters will pay only a one-off onboarding fee, with operating hours expanding incrementally to 22.5 hours per business day and a 24/7 multi-currency service targeted for mid-2028.

The more pointed part of Cipollone’s address was his argument that tokenisation is not merely an efficiency gain within existing settlement steps but a potential reorganisation of the entire financial value chain. Atomic settlement of cash and asset legs, smart-contract-driven coupon payments, and automated collateral and compliance processing together create an opening for Europe to build an integrated tokenised market rather than reproduce the fragmentation of its current infrastructure, which spans 31 central securities depositories (CSDs), 14 clearing houses, and 323 trading venues.

Cipollone named three risks: incompatible platforms fragmenting liquidity, markets migrating away from the central bank money anchor into private assets, and critical infrastructure dependencies on technology controlled outside Europe. Against those he set three conditions for success: interoperability grounded in common standards, public-private cooperation to drive adoption, and a legal framework aligned with the technology. On the last condition, he was direct that advanced technology cannot compensate for fragmented law, a pointed signal that Europe’s legislative progress has lagged its technical ambition.