The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) on Wednesday published a report on Project Agorá, an experimental prototype for cross-border wholesale payments.

BIS stated that report demonstrates how seven central banks and over 40 regulated financial institutions can settle cross-border wholesale payments within seconds after liquidity is locked, while reducing credit and settlement risks through atomic settlement using tokenized central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits.

The initiative represents one of the broadest collaborations to date between central banks and private lenders, exploring how tokenization can modernize global payments infrastructure.

The project, jointly convened by BIS and the Institute of International Finance, takes aim at the ponderous and pricey nature of international transactions, which continue to burden global trade and financial activities. According to FXC Intelligence cited in the report, the value of cross-border payments in 2024 was USD 195 trillion, and by 2032 it is expected to reach USD 320 trillion.

The Agorá project uses a two-layer blockchain architecture, combining tokenized central bank reserves on jurisdictional ledgers with tokenized commercial bank deposits on a common unifying ledger, enabling the so-called atomic settlement, in which all balance updates occur simultaneously or not at all.

BIS said the approach preserves a “two-tier banking system” and safeguards “money uniformity,” which it called “fundamental to financial stability,” distinguishing the project from stablecoin alternatives.

The platform also enables institutions to conduct anti-money laundering, sanctions and fraud detection activities in parallel rather than sequentially, which BIS says could reduce the high rate of fraudulent claims that plague today’s cross-border payments system.

Related: BIS warns that dollar stablecoins could put a strain on banks and politics

The Agorá project moves to real value testing

The project is moving to real-value testing with real-world transactions involving specific currencies and participants, although BIS has not provided a timeline for implementation.

The report identifies areas requiring further development, including liquidity conservation mechanisms, the state of cybersecurity and the governance framework covering settlement finality, data management and risk management.

Settlement occurs within seconds after funds are locked, and the platform is designed to operate 24/7 to reduce delays caused by uneven business hours across jurisdictions.

Wholesale cross-border payments today vs Project Agorá. Source: BIS

“The prototype also enhances transparency. All parties to a transaction have access to real-time payment status while maintaining privacy from parties not involved in the transaction,” BIS said in the report, adding that such visibility could be extended to end users, including debtors and creditors, in the future.

Participating central banks include the Banque de France representing the Eurosystem, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of Korea, the Bank of Mexico, the Swiss National Bank, the Federal Reserve Bank of Modern York through its Innovation Center in Modern York, and the Bank of England.

Earlier this month, the Bank of England proposed extending settlement hours on its RTGS and CHAPS systems as part of a wider move towards near 24/7 settlement.

Lieutenant Governor Sarah Breeden also said shared ledgers and tokenization could make payments and settlements faster and cheaper with fewer intermediaries and shorter settlement windows.

Cointelegraph reached out to the BIS media team for comment on implementation timelines and management plans, but did not receive a response in the form of a publication.

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