BNP Paribas joins BIS-led Agorá Project for tokenized payments

By Parth Prabhudesai

BNP Paribas is participating in Project Agorá, a global initiative led by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and the Institute of International Finance (IIF), aimed at exploring how tokenization and programmable payment technologies could improve cross-border wholesale payments.

The project brings together seven central banks, including issuers of five major reserve currencies, along with more than 40 private financial institutions in a public-private collaboration focused on addressing long-standing inefficiencies in international payments.

Cross-border payments currently rely on multiple banks, infrastructures and verification steps, often resulting in delays, limited transaction visibility and higher operational costs due to manual reconciliation and compliance processes.

Project Agorá is testing whether tokenized infrastructure and programmable transaction mechanisms could make payments more synchronized, transparent and efficient without immediately replacing existing financial systems.

One of the key features being explored is “atomic settlement”, where a transaction is completed only if all parts of the transfer, including asset delivery and payment, occur simultaneously. The approach aims to reduce settlement risk and avoid situations where one side of a transaction is completed while the other remains pending.

BNP Paribas said the initiative builds on several years of experimentation in tokenized securities, digital settlement systems and distributed ledger technology (DLT)-based financial infrastructure.

Bruno Mellado, head of payments and receivables at BNP Paribas Cash Management, said, “We have been working on these topics for several years through very concrete cases. Agorá allows us to go further, by testing these mechanisms in a collective framework, with central banks and other international players.”

“The interest is to see, in very concrete terms, what works, what needs to be adapted, and how these innovative approaches bring a real operational gain that transforms the payment experience for our customers,” Mellado added.

The project remains in an exploratory phase, with participating institutions evaluating technical feasibility, regulatory alignment, operational integration and data governance requirements before any broader implementation.

Industry participants say the initiative could help shape the future of cross-border wholesale payments as financial institutions increasingly explore tokenization and digital settlement infrastructure.