(25 April 2025 – Europe) The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), alongside key central banking partners, has successfully demonstrated how wholesale payment systems – such as Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) platforms – can interoperate for foreign exchange (FX) transactions through emerging technologies like distributed ledger technology (DLT).
Project Meridian FX, a collaboration between the BIS Innovation Hub and the Bank of England, Bank of France, Bank of Italy, Deutsche Bundesbank, and the European Central Bank, explored how FX settlements can be synchronised to reduce risk. The project used DLT to ensure that both legs of an FX transaction occur simultaneously, meaning, for example, that the sale of one currency only takes place if the corresponding purchase of another currency is completed.
Central to the project was the development of a “synchronisation operator”, a technology-neutral interface designed to coordinate the real-time exchange of assets across disparate payment systems.
The experimental infrastructure linked a synthetic version of the UK’s RTGS system with three different Eurosystem DLT platforms:
- DL3S, developed by the Bank of France
- TIPS Hash-Link, created by the Bank of Italy
- Trigger Solution, engineered by the Deutsche Bundesbank
In all test cases, the synchronisation operator successfully enabled payment-versus-payment (PvP) FX settlements.
The project also trialled enhanced functionalities, including liquidity-saving mechanisms and custom transaction parameters like approval thresholds. Findings from the experiment suggest that synchronised settlement can be independent of both the underlying asset types and the specific technologies used, broadening its potential application across markets.
According to the BIS, the insights gathered from Project Meridian FX will inform ongoing innovation and future work programs at the participating central banks.