ECB to launch tokenized finance project Pontes in Q3

The European Central Bank will launch Pontes, a tokenized finance project, in the third quarter, ECB Executive Board member Piero Cipollone said. The project centers on directly linking distributed ledger technology platforms used in financial markets with TARGET Services, the Eurosystem’s existing payment infrastructure. The plan is to enable DLT-based financial transactions to be settled in tokenized central bank money rather than commercial bank deposits or stablecoins.