BIS’ Project Agorá Enters Design Phase with Over 40 Private Sector Firms on Board

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has confirmed that its innovative initiative, Project Agorá, will begin its design phase, with more than 40 private sector financial institutions pledging participation.

The project aims at exploring how tokenisation can revolutionise wholesale cross-border payments by overcoming current structural inefficiencies in the system.

Prominent financial giants such as Standard Chartered, Lloyds Banking Group, Mastercard, Euroclear, BNP Paribas, and JP Morgan Chase have signed on to participate.

BIS revealed that the financial giants were assembled by the Institute of International Finance (IIF).

They are set to join seven central banks already backing the project, including the Bank of England, Bank of Japan, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

According to BIS, “With all participants in place, Project Agorá is now ready to roll into its scheduled design phase,”

“This phase will address several structural inefficiencies, including legal disparities across jurisdictions, technical variations, and the challenge of financial integrity controls.”

These inefficiencies often lead to repeated processes during cross-border transactions due to multiple intermediaries.

The project’s findings are expected to build upon the outcomes of Project Mariana, another BIS-led initiative that explored cross-border settlement capabilities using wholesale central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

This development came six days after the BIS Quarterly Review for September 2024 was published.

The review provides an in-depth analysis of recent developments in financial markets, life insurance, global trade alignment, capital flows to emerging market economies (EMEs), and global banking statistics.

It further highlights BIS’ ongoing efforts to address global financial challenges and aligns with the objectives of Project Agorá in transforming cross-border payment systems.

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