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TL;DR
- The ECB has started preparatory work to invest a small portion of its own-funds portfolio in tokenized euro-denominated securities.
- Initial eligible assets are expected to include euro-area public-sector and supranational issuers.
- The future purchases are intended to settle in central-bank money through Pontes; purchases have not yet been executed.
The European Central Bank is moving from building tokenized-settlement infrastructure to preparing to use it for part of its own investment portfolio.
The ECB said on September 21 that it has begun preparatory work to invest a small portion of its own-funds portfolio in tokenized euro-denominated securities.
ECB Prepares To Become A Direct Buyer
The plan is separate from monetary policy.
The own-funds portfolio is a non-monetary-policy pool, and the initial investment universe is expected to focus on euro-area central governments, regional governments, agencies and European supranational issuers.
The especially notable part is how those trades are intended to settle. The ECB plans to use Pontes, the Eurosystem’s newly launched infrastructure for settling tokenized financial assets in central-bank money.
That means the central bank is not only creating a bridge for market participants; it is preparing to use that bridge itself.
No Tokenized Purchases Have Happened Yet
The status needs to be kept precise.
The ECB has launched preparatory work. It has not said that tokenized securities have already been purchased for the portfolio.
Operational timing and execution details are still to be determined after the preparation phase and subsequent Executive Board review.
Even so, the direction is significant. A central bank directly holding tokenized public-sector securities in its own portfolio would move tokenization another step away from demonstration projects and into day-to-day institutional asset management.
For now, the development is about preparation rather than completed trades — but it gives Pontes an immediate potential use case inside the Eurosystem itself.
This article was written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.
