The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) together with seven central banks announced plans to work with the private sector to explore how tokenisation can enhance the functioning of the monetary system.
Bank of France (representing the Eurosystem), Bank of Japan, Bank of Korea, Bank of Mexico, Swiss National Bank, Bank of England and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York will seek to work in partnership with a large group of private financial firms convened by the Institute of International Finance (IIF).
Project Agorá builds on the unified ledger concept proposed by the BIS and will investigate how tokenised commercial bank deposits can be "seamlessly integrated with tokenised wholesale central bank money in a public-private programmable core financial platform."
According to BIS, this could "enhance the functioning of the monetary system and provide new solutions using smart contracts and programmability, while maintaining its two-tier structure."
The BIS will issue a call for expressions of interest to private financial institutions to join Project Agorá.