The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has secured major commitments from leading financial institutions to a blockchain-based project aimed at revolutionizing cross-border payments.
JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, UBS, Visa, and Mastercard are among the 41 private-sector firms that have joined the project, named Agora. Seven central banks, including those from the US, eurozone, Japan, and England, are also participating.
The goal of Agora is to create a global platform where tokenized assets can be traded using digital currencies issued by participating central banks. This would enable investors to conduct cross-border transactions with virtually no risk, using a unified ledger.
“Given the high level of interest in Project Agora, the BIS chose to work with the Institute of International Finance to convene the private sector participants,” project lead Morten Bech stated.
The BIS, often referred to as the “bank of central banks,” is leading the project from its Innovation Hub. Agora is the largest and most complex of the BIS’s initiatives in terms of geographical scope and participant numbers.
“Agora has the potential to lay the foundation for a new regulated financial market infrastructure to facilitate cross-border payments,” the BIS said. “This is about improving, via technology, what central and commercial banks already do today and enabling greater speed and efficiency.”
