The European Central Bank and Eurosystem are advancing Pontes, a DLT settlement solution, with a planned live launch on September 21, and have disclosed the first four DLT operators involved: Axiology, Deutsche Börse’s Clearstream, Cashlink, and SWIAT, illustrating a range of infrastructure types connected to Pontes.

The Appia group features diverse participants, including two stablecoin issuers (Qivalis and Societe Generale Forge) and Fnality, reflecting alternative settlement paths and the broader ecosystem for tokenized wholesale settlement.

Appia is another ECB initiative aimed at building Europe’s future financial market infrastructure, and the ECB announced the 61 members of the Appia contact group, which supersedes the Pontes market contact group and the New Technologies for Wholesale settlement Contact Group.

Marius Jurgilas, CEO of Axiology, emphasized that tokenization will drive real change in European capital markets only if digital securities can connect effectively with existing infrastructure, and Pontes is a key step toward that integration.

Pontes will support two settlement modes: a trigger-based settlement for TARGET2 payments and DLT-based cash tokens representing balances in the TARGET2 system, i.e., wholesale central bank digital currency (wCBDC).

The Appia contact group includes a mix of banks, DLT platforms, and industry bodies (ABI, AFME, ECSDA, ICMA, ISDA), along with major market infrastructures such as Clearstream, Euroclear, Eurex, Euronext, Iberclear, LCH, the Luxembourg Stock Exchange, SWIFT, and Tradeweb; ESMA and the European Commission are also involved.