Settling Tokenised Securities: Stablecoin, Deposit or Central Bank Money

Recording a security on a distributed ledger is the easier part. The harder question is what it is paid with. Stablecoins are the obvious candidate, because they already sit where the tokenised security sits. Since 21 September 2026 the euro area has a second one: on that day the Eurosystem put Pontes into operation. It settles transactions on trading platforms built on distributed ledger technology (DLT) against central bank money.

Three means of payment come into question for such a transaction: central bank money, tokenised deposits and e-money tokens. The following sections show what settlement on a ledger actually solves, where stablecoins keep their place alongside Pontes, and what a company notices that does not take part in settlement itself. The text reflects the position in September 2026.

Two Sides of a Transaction

Every securities transaction has a securities leg and a cash leg. The seller delivers the security, the buyer pays the price. The risk lies in the moment between the two. Whoever performs first carries the risk that the other side defaults. Classically a settlement system closes this window by holding both legs and releasing them at the same time: the security at the central securities depository, the money as central bank money in T2.

Once the security is tokenised, the securities leg moves onto a ledger. German law has allowed this since 2021: a bond can be entered in a crypto securities register instead of being held as a certificate. The cash leg does not follow of its own accord. If the money stays in another system, a party is needed again to bring both legs together. With it the time window returns that tokenisation was meant to close.

What Joint Execution Solves and What It Does Not

Where the security and the means of payment sit on the same ledger, a smart contract can transfer both in a single transaction. If one leg fails, the other fails with it. This atomic settlement removes the counterparty risk of settlement entirely. There is no longer a state in which one side has delivered and the other has not yet paid.

Two risks remain all the same. The first lies in the means of payment itself. Whoever sells a security for an e-money token then holds a claim on its issuer, not central bank money. In its Annual Economic Report of 29 June 2025 the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) measures stablecoins against the singleness of money. The term means that money issued by different banks is accepted at par without scrutiny, because it settles against central bank money. A stablecoin, by contrast, remains the liability of one particular issuer, and the BIS concludes that it typically fails this test.

The second risk concerns liquidity. Atomic settlement requires the buyer to hold the money on the ledger beforehand. The BIS calls this a cash-in-advance constraint that works against the elasticity of money. In large-value payments, central banks provide banks with intraday liquidity against collateral. A token that has to be deposited in advance has no such buffer. For a single transaction this is a question of cost; for a whole market, in the BIS's assessment, it is a question of gridlock.

Three Means of Payment and Their Order

The Regulation on the DLT pilot regime, (EU) 2022/858, has applied since 23 March 2023. It allows central securities depositories to settle securities on a ledger and lays down an order for doing so in Article 5(8). Payments are settled in central bank money, including in tokenised form, where practical and available. Only otherwise may commercial bank money, also including in tokenised form, or e-money tokens step in. An operator that uses e-money tokens must identify, measure, monitor and mitigate all risks arising from them.

Why the Regulation admits e-money tokens at all is explained in its recital 34. Settlement in central bank money may be regarded as not practical and available if it is not offered over a ledger. This is exactly the condition that Pontes has shifted. Whether a given platform must therefore use central bank money is for the competent supervisors to decide; no statement on this has been published. On 4 December 2025 the European Commission proposed amending the Regulation as part of a package on capital market integration. As of September 2026 the amendment has not been adopted.

Tokenised deposits sit between the other two in this order. They are commercial bank money issued by a bank on the ledger, and the claim stays with the institution where the company holds its account anyway. What distinguishes them from stablecoins is described in Tokenised Deposits.

Pontes Connects Two Systems Instead of Replacing One

Pontes offers two routes. Either settlement takes place with cash tokens on a Eurosystem platform, or the payment runs in T2 as usual. In both cases it becomes final only once it is booked in T2. The link to the security on the trading platform is provided by a protocol called Hash-Link. It ensures that delivery and payment are executed together or not at all. This is delivery versus payment across two systems, not within a single ledger.

Any institution with access to T2 can take part. As platform operators the Eurosystem admits, among others, central securities depositories, operators under the DLT pilot regime, central clearing houses (CCPs) and supervised credit institutions. Between May and November 2024 more than 50 trials with 64 market participants came first. The ECB describes the launch on 21 September 2026 as a first step, with further stages to follow. It states its aim just as plainly: central bank money is to remain the safest means of settlement, even when the securities sit on a ledger.

Where Stablecoins Keep Their Place

Pontes does not reach every platform. It settles in euro and requires access to T2, directly or through a bank. A trading platform on a public blockchain without such a participant stays outside, as does any transaction in US dollars or another currency. There a stablecoin continues to carry the payment, because it works without a connection to a central bank payment system.

Other jurisdictions have taken their own routes. In the Bank of England's digital securities sandbox, participants can apply to use stablecoins for settlement. Switzerland settles in central bank money in a pilot project of its national bank. Both are described in Further Markets: UK, Switzerland, Singapore, UAE, Japan, and the comparison of all jurisdictions in Comparison & Decision Support.

The stablecoin's niche is therefore more sharply defined than before Pontes. It carries where central bank money does not reach: on open platforms, in foreign currency and between parties without shared access to T2. Where a platform under the pilot regime can obtain central bank money, the Regulation puts that first.

An Investment Seen from the Treasury

A machinery manufacturer invests part of its liquidity reserve in a tokenised bond offered by its house bank. It has no access to T2 itself and no wallet of its own for securities. What reaches it is a trade confirmation and later a custody statement. In between lies a process whose switch points it needs to know in order to judge the risk of the investment:

1. The treasury places the order with the house bank, and the bank trades on the platform.
2. The bank debits the company's account and provides the cash leg: via Pontes in central bank money, as a tokenised deposit or as an e-money token.
3. Platform and payment system execute delivery and payment together.
4. The bond is held for the company in a crypto securities register or with a custodian.
5. Accounting records the purchase. How is described in Posting, Valuation & Tax.

The choice in step 2 is usually made by the bank, yet it is not a matter of indifference to the company. If the payment runs through an e-money token, a claim on its issuer exists between the debit and the delivery. Who bears it during that time, the bank or the company, follows from the contract with the bank, not from the technology.

What the Treasury Settles in Writing Beforehand

For a CFO three points come first, and all three can be settled before the first transaction. The first is the means of payment: in which money the bank settles the cash leg, and who holds a claim on whom at which moment. The second is finality, meaning from which booking a transaction can no longer be unwound. With Pontes it is the booking in T2. A platform that is not notified as a settlement system under the Settlement Finality Directive must, under the pilot regime, propose its own measures for the event of insolvency.

The third point is custody. What matters is who keeps the register in which the bond is recorded, and who is liable if access to it is lost. Custody models and their liability are described in Custody & Safekeeping. None of the three points is new to a treasury. What is new is that, for a tokenised investment, they sit at different points in the process than for a bond in a securities account.

The Interface to T2 Decides

The real innovation of Pontes is not new money but a connection. Hash-Link links a security on another platform to a payment in T2 without both having to sit on the same ledger. This removes an assumption on which the story of the stablecoin as settlement layer rested: that delivery versus payment on a ledger only works if money and security sit in the same place. In the euro area, the choice of a platform for tokenised securities therefore depends less on the means of payment than on its connection to T2. For a stablecoin, the competitor on the cash leg there has been called Pontes since 21 September 2026.