ECB Appia
Appia is the long-term initiative of the Eurosystem for a European tokenized financial market in which central bank money stays the anchor of settlement. The ECB and the national central banks of the euro area launched Appia in 2025, and they plan to publish a blueprint with findings, recommendations and principles for this market in 2028.
Appia runs next to Pontes, the service that connects DLT platforms with TARGET Services and started on 21 September 2026. Pontes settles DLT trades in central bank money today, while Appia asks how money, assets and collateral should move on ledgers in Europe and which networks and standards that requires.
The Appia roadmap
The Eurosystem published the Appia roadmap on 11 March 2026 and presented it at an ECB focus session the next day. The roadmap sets out objectives, approach, timeline and methodology, and it weighs one shared ledger for money and assets against several networks connected to each other.
The work covers asset interoperability and standards, monetary policy and collateral management on DLT, an infrastructure for tokenized central bank money, cross-border integration, the legal framework and an implementation strategy. The ECB names four objectives: central bank money as an anchor of trust, a more integrated payments and securities market in Europe, strategic autonomy of Europe and the international role of the euro.
Appia consultation and contact group
The roadmap came with a public consultation, and answers were due by 22 April 2026. Piero Cipollone, member of the Executive Board of the ECB, said in a speech on 6 October 2026 that the consultation "received 127 responses, and 90% of respondents made at least one proposal to contribute".
In June 2026 the ECB called for expressions of interest in an Appia contact group, and the group now has 61 members chosen from more than 100 applicants. It replaces the earlier market contact groups for Pontes and for new technologies in wholesale settlement. Members named in the press include the euro stablecoin issuer Qivalis, the settlement network Fnality, Clearstream, Euroclear, Eurex, Euronext and Swift, and the associations AFME, ICMA and ISDA.
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Pontes and Appia
Pontes and Appia come from the same decision: on 1 July 2025 the ECB announced both tracks after the exploratory work of 2024, in which the Bundesbank trigger solution and two other central bank solutions settled DLT trades in central bank money. Pontes is the short-term bridge and runs as a service, while the findings of Appia are to improve Pontes step by step.
Piero Cipollone expects full implementation of Pontes by mid-2028, with a 24/7 service, more programmability and multi-currency capability. On the launch day of Pontes the ECB also started preparatory work to invest a small part of its own funds in tokenized securities settled through Pontes, starting with euro securities of public issuers from the euro area and supranational European issuers.
Appia timeline
- 1 July 2025: the ECB announces Pontes and Appia
- 11 March 2026: the Appia roadmap and the public consultation
- 22 April 2026: deadline for consultation answers
- June 2026: call for members of the Appia contact group
- 21 September 2026: initial launch of Pontes
- Mid-2028: full implementation of Pontes with a 24/7 service
- 2028: the Appia blueprint
Collateral on DLT, one of the subjects of Appia, is already in use: since June 2026 the Eurosystem accepts securities issued on Clearstream D7 DLT as collateral in its credit operations.
Appia and Finance Loop
Finance Loop covers Appia in its Payments & Digital Money track, together with Pontes, wholesale CBDC and tokenized deposits, and in the Digital Infrastructure & Sovereignty track, because Appia asks which DLT networks should run under European governance. Finance Loop meets in Frankfurt, the seat of the ECB, with banks, market infrastructures and DLT operators that follow the work on the blueprint.
Finance Loop is a professional network and has the goal of driving the institutional use of emerging technologies in finance, such as AI, tokenization, stablecoins, and DeFi. Finance Loop helps its members build skills and personal networks in these fields: Investment & Digital Assets, Payments & Digital Money, Digital Infrastructure & Sovereignty, and Risk & Compliance.