The PONTES Pilot: Europe's Blueprint for Blockchain-Based Settlement

The PONTES Pilot is a Eurosystem initiative led by the European Central Bank, with Banque de France, Banca d'Italia, Deutsche Bundesbank, and Banco de España as service providers. It represents a significant step toward settling wholesale financial transactions including payments, Delivery-versus-Payment (DvP), and Payment-versus-Payment (PvP), directly on a distributed ledger, using tokenised central bank money.

The pilot introduces a permissioned blockchain infrastructure that connects to the existing T2 RTGS system, allowing market participants to fund digital wallets, execute atomic settlements, and interact via both a graphical interface and APIs. Rather than a pure experiment, PONTES is designed as a market-ready solution , one that lays the groundwork for a scalable, long-term European DLT settlement architecture. The full service description, including technical specifications, workflow diagrams, and onboarding guidance, is available to download below.