Banking giant JPMorgan, credit card company Visa as well as major central banks from Japan and the US have thrown their support behind a sophisticated cross-border payment project that was initiated by the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), Bloomberg reports.
The cross-border payment program, which is known as Project Agora, aims to improve the efficiency of cross-border payments by making them faster and more transparent.
The public-private collaboration could potentially reshape the existing financial market infrastructure with the help of a unified ledger.
The project primarily focuses on tokenization, which has emerged as one of the biggest crypto trends. This technology would make it possible to use new types of transactions and arrangements.
Notably, the BIS wants to go beyond proof of concept with Agora, aiming to create a blueprint for modern financial market infrastructure.
An extensive report detailing the results of the project is expected to be published in 2025. So far, it is the most sophisticated blockchain project initiated by the BIS in terms of the number of participants.
In June, mBridge, another project initiated by the BIS, ended up reaching the stage of the minimum viable product (MVP). The list of its participants includes the central banks of China, the UAE, Thailand as well as Saudi Arabia. The project is powered by the mBridge Ledger, a new blockchain that was built specifically for cross-border payments.
Last year, the central banks of France, Switzerland, and Singapore joined the BIS in order to try out using wholesale CBDCs for conducting cross-border trades.