The Eurosystem is inviting financial market stakeholders and public sector bodies to provide insights and recommendations on its Pontes and Appia projects, its distributed ledger technology (DLT) and tokenization initiatives, respectively.
On June 1, the Eurosystem—the monetary authority of the eurozone that consists of the European Central Bank (ECB) and national central banks of the 21 member states that are part of the eurozone—put out a call for financial market stakeholders and public sector bodies to express their interest in participating in the “Appia contact group,” which will play a pivotal role in supporting key Eurosystem initiatives.
Specifically, the contact group aims to foster “dialogue and collaboration” by enabling participants to comment and advise on critical aspects of the Eurosystem’s Pontes and Appia projects.
DLT and tokenization initiatives
The Pontes and Appia projects were launched by the Eurosystem in 2025.
Pontes is the Eurosystem’s DLT solution that will create a bridge between market DLT platforms and the Eurosystem’s existing TARGET (Transeuropean Automated Real-time Gross-settlement Express Transfer) payment Services. Ultimately, it aims to enable the settlement of tokenized assets in central bank money.
Appia, meanwhile, represents the “longer-term vision of a European tokenised financial ecosystem,” building on the successful outcomes of the Eurosystem’s 2024 exploratory work on new technologies for wholesale central bank money settlement. With Appia, the Eurosystem aims to leverage the unique capabilities of DLT and tokenization to foster a harmonized, efficient European financial market.
“These projects are key to advancing the Eurosystem’s efforts in the areas of tokenisation and distributed ledger technology (DLT) and to shaping the Eurosystem’s vision of a modernised and innovative financial ecosystem,” said the ECB. “Together, these initiatives form a unified strategy to drive innovation, enhance cross-border financial integration, and strengthen Europe’s financial sovereignty.”
Call for participants
The contact group, for which the Eurosystem is calling for participants, will play a pivotal role in supporting these two initiatives.
According to the ECB, it will provide insights into the operation and evolution of Pontes, with members able to discuss key business and technical matters, including user requirements, risk management, and change/release management processes critical to the system’s evolution.
The contact group will also contribute to the development of the Eurosystem’s tokenized financial ecosystem, with members exchanging knowledge on advances in DLT, supporting standardization efforts, and addressing technical and business topics outlined in the Appia roadmap.
All of this falls under the ultimate goal of supporting the Appia blueprint for a tokenized wholesale financial market.
In its June 1 press release, the ECB invited stakeholders who want to participate in the contact group to apply by June 19, 2026.
EU increasing focus on tokenization
The call for participants in the Eurosystem’s DLT and tokenization initiatives comes at a time of increased focus in the EU on the sector, with the ECB continuing to push for a digital euro, central bank digital currency (CBDC), and EU-based tokenization firms upping the pressure on policymakers to remove constraints built into the EU’s blockchain pilot regime.
On the latter, in February, a group of European tokenization companies reportedly sent a joint letter to EU policymakers arguing that the bloc’s DLT Pilot Regime—the EU’s regulatory sandbox for tokenization—includes tight restrictions on asset eligibility, volume caps, and licensing limits that are disincentivizing firms that are already providing services in the U.S. from participating.
The signatories, including 21X, Central Securities Depository, Boerse Stuttgart Group, Lise, and Axiology, urged EU policymakers to act quickly to reduce, and in some cases remove, the restrictions.
The following month, the ECB added to this growing pressure on EU policymakers to support tokenization. This time, in relation to the proposed digital euro, which the ECB has been a long-time advocate of, but on which lawmakers are dragging their feet.
In a March speech to the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, ECB Executive Board member Piero Cipollone said that as tokenized markets grow, they will require a “trusted public anchor” in the new technology, in this case, a DLT/blockchain-based central bank money—i.e., the digital euro.
However, to advance the digital euro and the tokenization space, Cipollone called on EU policymakers to produce “a clear and timely legal framework” that “would allow us to complete our preparations and it would give market participants, including PSPs and merchants, certainty about what needs to be done.”
The Eurosystem’s latest call for participation in the Appia Contact Group provides further evidence that tokenization is becoming an ever greater priority for public bodies in the EU, and that perhaps lawmakers need to read the room.
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