Banking giant JPMorgan, credit card company Visa and major central banks from Japan and the US have thrown their support behind an advanced cross-border payments project initiated by the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), Bloomberg. reports.
The cross-border payments program, known as Project Agora, aims to improve the efficiency of cross-border payments by making them faster and more transparent.
The public-private partnership could potentially reform the existing financial market infrastructure using a unified ledger.
The project focuses primarily on tokenization, which has emerged as one of the biggest crypto trends. This technology would allow new types of transactions and arrangements to be used.
In particular, the BIS wants to go beyond proof of concept with Agora, with the aim of creating a blueprint for the modern financial market infrastructure.
A comprehensive report on the results of the project is expected to be published in 2025. To date, this is the most advanced blockchain project initiated by the BIS in terms of the number of participants.
In June, mBridge, another project initiated by the BIS, finally reached the minimum viable product (MVP) stage. The list of participants includes the central banks of China, the UAE, Thailand and Saudi Arabia. The project is powered by the mBridge Ledger, a new blockchain purpose-built for cross-border payments.
Last year, the central banks of France, Switzerland and Singapore joined the BIS to trial the use of wholesale CBDCs to conduct cross-border transactions.