The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) published findings from Project Meridian FX, a joint experiment with the Bank of England, Bank of France, Bank of Italy, Deutsche Bundesbank and European Central Bank, showing that wholesale payment infrastructures such as real-time gross settlement (RTGS) systems can be linked using new technologies to synchronise foreign exchange (FX) transactions across jurisdictions. The project demonstrated a distributed ledger technology-based approach to synchronised settlement, where one leg of an FX transaction transfers only if the other leg transfers, supporting payment-versus-payment settlement and reducing FX settlement risk. It connected a synthetic version of the UK RTGS system to three experimental Eurosystem interoperability solutions: DL3S (Bank of France), TIPS Hash-Link (Bank of Italy) and the Trigger Solution (Deutsche Bundesbank). Building on earlier BIS and Bank of England work, the results indicate synchronisation can be agnostic to the asset and to the underlying ledger technology, suggesting potential applicability beyond FX. Insights from Meridian FX are expected to inform the work programmes of the participating central banks.
Bank for International Settlements 2025-04-24
Bank for International Settlements and partner central banks demonstrate cross-border RTGS interoperability for synchronised FX settlement
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and European central banks' Project Meridian FX showed that wholesale payment infrastructures can use distributed ledger technology to synchronise foreign exchange transactions across jurisdictions. This synchronised settlement reduces FX settlement risk and is agnostic to asset and ledger technology. Insights will inform future work programmes of the participating central banks.