In an important speech today, European Central Bank (ECB) director Piero Cipollone proposed the creation of a European ledger, the EU’s version of the Unified Ledger, to support tokenization in the capital markets. He noted the challenges in creating a conventional Capital Markets Union, including the need for greater legal harmonization. The Director highlighted some risks in moving towards digital assets and distributed ledger technology (DLT). But rather than viewing tokenization as a threat, he said the EU should embrace the clean sheet opportunity to create a Digital Capital Markets Union. He was speaking at a Bundesbank Symposium.
“A European ledger could bring together token versions of central bank money, commercial bank money and other digital assets on a shared, programmable platform,” said Mr Cipollone. “In essence, this would see T2S evolving into a DLT-based, single financial market infrastructure for Europe. While central banks would provide the platform, or the ‘rails’ so to speak, market participants would supply the content, or the ‘trains’.” T2S refers to the EU high value payment system used for the settlement of securities transactions in central bank money.
Since May, the European Central Bank has been coordinating the Eurosystem’s DLT trials for wholesale settlement using central bank money. With 60 private sector organizations taking part, it can see the level of interest and engagement. While the EU’s DLT Pilot Regime, which relaxes some of the current EU laws, has not been embraced by incumbents, the first startups are likely to be approved soon.
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