Today the BIS unveiled the application process for private sector institutions to participate in Project Agorá. That’s the tokenization initiative for wholesale cross border payments involving seven central banks. Eligible applicants are financial institutions, including FMIs with accounts at the participating central banks, plus critical payment service providers. It’s a tight timeframe to make a decision, with applications closing on May 31 and the results announced in early August.
While Agorá is a public private partnership, it is the private sector that will fund the work through participation fees. A likely rationale is that the private sector founded Swift.
The initiative is the first to explore the BIS concept of a Unified Ledger seriously. It is coordinated by the BIS and the Institute of International Finance (IIF), although participants need not be IIF members. The seven central banks include Europe (France), Japan, Korea, Mexico, Switzerland, England and the U.S. represented by the New York Innovation Center (NYIC). In the case of the EU, the applicant needs an account with any Eurosystem central bank.
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