Project Agorá Completes First Live Transactions, Settling CHF 800,000 Across Six Currencies

Key points

Project Agorá processed its first real-money transactions, with 22 financial institutions and 5 central banks completing 30 trades worth roughly CHF 800,000 across six currencies.
Average time from initiation to settlement was approximately 80 seconds, achieved without integration into central bank settlement systems or participants' core banking platforms.
Lloyds Banking Group confirmed involvement in three of the 30 transactions, making it one of the few named institutional participants.
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, a notable presence in the prototype phase, did not participate in the live trials, nor did the Bank of Mexico or the Bank of Canada.
The BIS has stated no commitment to move the project into production, keeping Project Agorá firmly in the experimental category despite the live-money milestone.

Project Agorá, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) initiative examining tokenisation's role in wholesale cross-border payments, has processed real money for the first time. Twenty-two financial institutions and five central banks completed 30 transactions totalling roughly CHF 800,000 (approximately $984,000) across the Swiss franc, euro, sterling, yen, won, and dollar, with tokens backed by actual central bank reserves and tokenised deposits. Lloyds Banking Group confirmed participation in three of those transactions.

The live phase follows a prototype unveiled in May and represents a meaningful step beyond simulation, though the BIS has made no commitment to move the project into production. Average settlement time ran to around 80 seconds per transaction, a result achieved without any connection to central bank settlement infrastructure or the participating banks' core banking systems.

Five central banks took part: the Bank of England, the Bank of France acting for the Eurosystem, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of Korea, and the Swiss National Bank. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which had been a notable participant during the prototype phase, did not join the live tests, and neither did the Bank of Mexico; the Bank of Canada joined the project too late to be included.

What this means

treasury & allocator: An 80-second cross-border settlement cycle achieved without core-system integration is worth stress-testing against current correspondent-banking assumptions, particularly for flows denominated in the five currencies whose central banks actively participated.
infrastructure & platform: Achieving sub-90-second finality in a disconnected environment suggests the settlement performance ceiling is not the tokenisation layer itself; reconnecting to central bank infrastructure and core banking systems is where the harder integration work sits, and scoping that dependency now would be prudent.
regulatory & policy affairs: Central bank participation patterns matter here: the absence of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from the live phase, after its presence in the prototype, raises questions about dollar-leg sequencing in any future production design that warrant direct engagement with relevant authorities.

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