ECB Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel said central banks should move central-bank money onto blockchain infrastructure and use distributed-ledger programmability to modernize monetary-policy implementation, collateral management, and liquidity provision.
Schnabel's call marks the first formal push by a major central bank to integrate its own money into public or private blockchain networks rather than confine settlement to closed systems. The ECB is currently assessing technical models, including a unified ledger or connections across multiple ledgers, according to her remarks reported by Bloomberg on August 28.
The ECB plans to launch its Pontes initiative next month to connect distributed-ledger technology platforms with existing TARGET services, which currently handle around 1 trillion euros in daily settlement across the eurozone. Pontes will function as a bridge between legacy payment infrastructure and blockchain systems, allowing central-bank money to flow between them without requiring a complete overhaul of existing systems. The initiative targets a September 21 launch, according to ECB materials.
Schnabel framed the move as necessary modernization. Blockchain's programmability would allow the ECB to automate collateral management, execute conditional payments tied to real-time data feeds, and improve the speed and transparency of liquidity distribution to commercial banks during market stress. These functions currently require manual intervention or batch-processing workflows built on 1970s-era messaging standards.
The ECB's longer-term Appia initiative is expected to deliver a formal blueprint in 2028 for how central-bank digital currency and settlement infrastructure might operate on distributed ledgers at scale. Appia will define the legal, technical, and operational standards for how the ECB might eventually conduct monetary policy through blockchain rather than through physical reserves held at the central bank itself.
Other major central banks have tested blockchain infrastructure for settlement and payments, but none have formally committed to moving core monetary operations onchain. The Bank for International Settlements, which coordinates central-bank policy, issued a report in 2024 estimating that 95 percent of central banks are exploring digital-currency design, though most remain in research phases.
Schnabel's public endorsement for onchain settlement at the operational level compresses a timeline that most central banks have treated as a decade-long research problem. If the ECB executes Pontes as planned in September, it will become the first central bank to operationalize blockchain connections to active payment systems. The Appia 2028 blueprint will determine whether that experiment becomes the model for eurozone monetary operations.
