Three central banks wrap tokenized FX settlement test with Partior

The three central banks announced the completion on Friday, saying the experiments ran on a prototype built by Partior that handled payment-versus-payment settlement and multilateral net FX transactions across their separate test environments. The work falls under Project Meridian FX APAC, which the group unveiled last November. The Reserve Bank of Australia and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas took part as observers.

The trials stretched across multiple currencies, technologies, settlement infrastructures and time zones. According to the joint statement, Partior's system matched settlement instructions, coordinated the reservation of funds, monitored payment readiness and kicked off settlement. The banks also tested multilateral netting, which lets institutions offset payments against each other to cut the liquidity needed to settle.

Despite the technical success, a policy report published alongside the results flagged open questions on operational resilience, settlement finality, governance, liability and cross-border data sharing. It also warned that adding functions such as holding funds or calculating net positions could shift how an operator is regulated.

Tom Mutton, the Bank of England's executive director of payments, innovation and fintech, said the project delivered practical evidence of how synchronized settlement could help reduce risk and improve efficiency in cross-border FX transactions. The BOE plans to launch a live synchronization interface in 2028. The findings will feed into further work on synchronized settlement.