TD tests tokenised USD payment on Project Agorá

Toronto-Dominion Bank executed a tokenised U.S. dollar payment between two of its U.S. entities on Project Agorá in a recent test, working with the Bank of New York to move actual dollars and complete an immediate, atomic settlement.

Project Agorá is a public‑private initiative convened by the Bank for International Settlements that explores digital forms of existing money and new payment technology for wholesale cross‑border payments.

TD issued tokenised deposits on the Agorá platform and used the distributed ledger technology that underlies the network to transfer funds between two domestic U.S. entities. The test used real U.S. dollars rather than simulated assets.

Atomic settlement in this context means the change of ownership and settlement occur at the same time, removing the timing gap between transfer and finality and reducing settlement risk for the parties involved.

Carolyn Weinberg, chief product and innovation officer at BNY, described the exercise as a proof of concept for tokenised deposits. She commented, ‘Project Agorá highlights the potential of tokenised deposits making cross‑border payments more efficient, transparent and resilient.’

Earlier this year, Lloyds Banking Group and Caixabank completed tokenised deposit transactions on the same platform. Agorá has run multiple experiments with commercial banks and infrastructure providers to test operational feasibility, interoperability and legal and regulatory considerations for tokenised bank balances.

The TD payment was domestic, but participants noted that lessons from the test are relevant to wholesale cross‑border payment challenges, where delays, costs and settlement risks persist. Agorá continues to examine how tokenised bank deposits and digital rails might be integrated into existing payment systems.