LEGION I.O.T
Source-linked profiles of central bank and bank tokenisation projects, starting with the BIS Innovation Hub (Project Dunbar, mBridge, Agorá, Nexus) and HSBC. We describe what each project says it tested, not what might happen next.
Four central banks (Australia, Malaysia, Singapore and South Africa) built two prototypes of a shared platform for settling several central bank digital currencies across borders, one on Corda with R3 and one on Quorum with Partior. The BIS lists it as concluded, with results published on 22 March 2022.
A multi-CBDC payments platform that grew out of Inthanon-LionRock. Founding partners were the BIS Innovation Hub, the Bank of Thailand, the Central Bank of the UAE, the PBoC Digital Currency Institute and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority; the Saudi Central Bank joined in 2024. It reached a minimum viable product in mid-2024 and the BIS handed it over to its partners in October 2024.
Run with the Institute of International Finance, Agorá tested wholesale cross-border payments using tokenised central bank reserves and tokenised commercial bank deposits. Seven central banks and more than 40 private firms took part. The May 2026 report says atomic settlement is achievable across currencies and that testing will advance towards real value.
Aims to connect domestic instant payment systems through one standard platform, so a payment can reach another country in most cases within 60 seconds. The BIS Singapore Centre started it in 2022. In 2025 the central banks of India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand formed Nexus Global Payments to take it live.
A multi-phase study with the Swiss National Bank and SIX on settling tokenised assets in central bank money. Phases I and II reported in December 2020 and January 2022. The SNB then piloted real Swiss franc wholesale CBDC from 1 December 2023 to 30 June 2024 without the BIS Innovation Hub.
Tested cross-border trading and settlement of hypothetical euro, Singapore dollar and Swiss franc wholesale CBDCs between simulated institutions, using an automated market maker on a public blockchain. Launched November 2022 and concluded with a final report on 28 September 2023.
A Hong Kong Centre project with the HKMA exploring privacy-enhancing technology for digital cash, combining encryption, BBS+ signatures, pseudonym-based ownership and zero-knowledge proofs. Listed as ongoing, with its page updated on 13 October 2026.
HSBC’s platform for issuing, managing and settling securities on distributed ledger infrastructure. HSBC says it has enabled more than US$5bn of digital bond issuance, and that the Bank of England approved HSBC Bank plc as the first applicant to go live in the UK Digital Securities Sandbox.
HSBC describes digital, real-time access to commercial bank deposits that supports round-the-clock liquidity and blockchain-based cross-border payments, with real-time exchange of tokenised deposits in multiple currencies launched in six markets, which its page does not name.
A tokenised gold product for retail clients in Hong Kong, giving fractional ownership of physical gold. HSBC calls it the first tokenised gold product from a bank and cites trading volume above US$2.37bn by July 2026; that figure is the bank’s own.
In September 2024 HSBC piloted post-quantum cryptography and Quantinuum’s Quantum Origin randomness to protect tokenised physical gold trades and to move gold tokens across ledgers, including conversion to ERC-20 tokens. No performance results were reported.
HSBC lists institutional-grade custody and safekeeping for digital assets among its offerings. The page we read gives no further detail on markets or launch dates.
A financial messaging standard used by banks and payment networks. It is not a certification for crypto tokens. Our explainer separates what the standard is from the “compliant coin” claims that circulate online.
A wholesale CBDC is central bank money for banks and financial institutions, used for large-value settlement. A retail CBDC would be digital cash for the public. Most BIS Innovation Hub work on cross-border settlement concerns the wholesale kind.
The South African Reserve Bank’s own interbank pilots are not BIS projects, though the SARB also took part in Project Dunbar. They ran on Quorum, not Ripple. Details are on our Countries topic page.