The European Central Bank has just launched Pontes, an infrastructure that allows transactions involving tokenised assets to be settled using central bank money. For now, it is designed for banks and financial markets, not for citizens.

But the move has a deeper significance. Europe is building the infrastructure needed to ensure that public money remains central in an increasingly digital and tokenised economy.

And the next major step already has a name: the digital euro. At 11Onze, we have been following this process for years and warning about both the opportunities and the risks associated with CBDCs. Now, part of that transformation has already moved from the project stage to real infrastructure.

A bridge between traditional finance and tokenisation

The name is no coincidence. Pontes means “bridges” in Latin. And that is precisely what the Eurosystem has built: a bridge between new financial platforms based on distributed ledger technology —DLT— and the European Central Bank’s traditional settlement systems.

The ECB launched Pontes on 21 September 2026. Its purpose is to enable wholesale transactions involving tokenised assets to be settled in central bank money. To understand its importance, we need to explain what tokenisation means.

Imagine a financial obligation, a bond or any other asset. Traditionally, its issuance, buying and selling, registration and settlement involve different intermediaries and databases. Tokenising it means representing this asset digitally on a DLT infrastructure, where it can be transferred and managed through automated processes.

The problem arises when it is time to pay. Moving the digital asset is one thing. Settling the monetary counterpart with a safe asset is another. Pontes allows these DLT platforms to connect with the Eurosystem’s TARGET services so that final settlement takes place in central bank money.

This is an important distinction. The ECB is not simply creating a new cryptocurrency. It is adapting the existing monetary infrastructure so that it can operate within an increasingly tokenised financial system.

Why is the ECB doing this?

The answer is as technological as it is political and monetary. If financial markets progressively migrate towards tokenised platforms and central banks are not present, the settlement space could end up being occupied by private bank money, stablecoins or other digital assets.

The ECB wants to avoid this scenario. That is why Pontes forms part of a broader strategy that also includes Appia, the long-term project through which the Eurosystem aims to study a more integrated European financial architecture based on tokenisation and DLT. Pontes is the immediate solution; Appia looks further ahead.

Before reaching this point, the Eurosystem had already carried out tests during 2024 with 64 participants and more than 50 experiments and trials. We are not, therefore, talking about an improvised experiment. We are talking about a monetary strategy.

The advantages: speed, automation and less fragmentation

Pontes has strong arguments in its favour. Tokenisation can simplify processes that today require multiple intermediaries, records and reconciliation systems. It can also facilitate automated transactions through smart contracts and allow the exchange of the asset and the payment to take place in a coordinated manner.

The ECB itself plans to progressively expand Pontes with settlement 24 hours a day, seven days a week, as well as new automation features.

There is also a question of security. If Europe develops tokenised markets, having central bank money as the settlement asset prevents this entire infrastructure from depending exclusively on private issuers. At the same time, a common architecture could reduce the fragmentation of European capital markets. In other words: technology is changing, but the ECB wants to preserve its role as the anchor of the monetary system.

The risks: centralisation, dependence and a new technological power

But every financial infrastructure also redistributes power. Tokenisation can bring efficiency, but it also makes it possible to increase automation, traceability and the capacity to intervene in transactions. At the wholesale level, this can facilitate risk control and regulatory compliance. But the issue becomes much more delicate when this same transformation reaches the money that citizens use on a daily basis.

And this is where the digital euro comes in. Pontes is not a retail CBDC, nor is it the digital euro. It is intended for the wholesale market: banks, market infrastructures and large financial transactions. The digital euro, by contrast, would be intended for individuals and businesses to make everyday payments.

They are different projects. But they respond to the same question: what role will central bank money play when the economy is predominantly digital?

From the wholesale market to citizens’ pockets

This is where the debate ceases to be exclusively technical. The digital euro project has already completed its preparation phase. In October 2025, the ECB decided to move on to the next stage and build the technical capacity required for a possible issuance. If the European legislative framework progresses according to the planned timetable, the ECB envisages pilot tests from 2027 and being ready for a possible first issuance during 2029. The final decision, however, will only come after the corresponding legislation has been approved.

This CBDC would be digital public money. It would not be Bitcoin. Nor would it be a private stablecoin or the euros we already have in our bank accounts. When we have 100 euros deposited in a commercial bank, we essentially have a claim against that institution. A digital euro, by contrast, would be a liability of the central bank, just as banknotes are today. This distinction explains much of the significance of the project.

The debate that 11Onze had already put on the table

In March 2023, at 11Onze we published “CBDC: monetary utopia or dystopia?”. Even then, we explained the two sides of central bank digital currencies: greater efficiency, reduced costs and opportunities for financial inclusion, but also questions about privacy, traceability and the capacity for control.

It was not a question of claiming that any CBDC would inevitably lead to a system of control. Technology, by itself, does not determine how it will be used. Its design, the laws and institutional safeguards do.

This is precisely why the debate remains necessary. The ECB states that the digital euro will complement cash, that it will offer a high level of privacy and that it will even allow offline payments. European documentation itself acknowledges, however, that aspects such as holding limits, technological architecture, privacy and the role of intermediaries are essential elements of its design.

Therefore, the question is no longer whether Europe will further digitalise its monetary infrastructure. This process is already under way. The question is: under what rules will it do so?

Pontes is only the beginning

Pontes may seem like an infrastructure far removed from everyday life. Today, it is. A consumer will not pay for coffee with Pontes, nor will they have a Pontes wallet on their mobile phone. But its launch marks an important change.

Central bank money is beginning to adapt to an ecosystem where assets can be tokenised, transactions automated and financial infrastructures programmable.

At 11Onze, we have been analysing this transformation for years because the technological transformation of money is not just a matter of convenience. It also affects privacy, monetary sovereignty, the role of banks, competition and, ultimately, citizens’ relationship with their money.

Pontes is already here. The digital euro is not yet. But the direction of travel is becoming increasingly clear. And faced with a change of this magnitude, understanding how money will work is the first way to preserve our ability to decide how we want to use it.

At La Plaça by 11Onze, we will continue to explain the evolution of the digital euro, CBDCs and the transformation of the financial system so that you can understand what is changing before that change reaches your pocket.

11Onze is Catalonia’s fintech community. Open an account by downloading the El Canut app for Android or iOS. Join the revolution.