Project Rialto: improving instant cross-border payments using central bank money settlement

Updated 10 December 2025

Project Rialto was a technical experiment run by the BIS Innovation Hub in collaboration with the Bank of France, the Bank of Italy, Bank Negara Malaysia (the central bank of Malaysia) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

It focused on mitigating foreign exchange (FX) and settlement related frictions in retail cross-border payments. Its goal was to demonstrate the technical feasibility of connecting non-tokenised payment systems to tokenised FX and settlement.

The proof of concept (POC) successfully simulated a direct transaction between senders and receivers in different jurisdictions and a transaction with a vehicle currency to address cases in which a third currency is needed to facilitate the exchange.

The POC integrated interlinked instant payment systems with an FX mechanism leveraging automated market makers and tokenised central bank money as a safe settlement asset on a cross-border distributed ledger technology (DLT) network.

Background

Rialto focused on low-value transactions such as remittances and other person-to-person payments executed via the traditional banking channel. Despite past efforts to reduce the inefficiencies associated with such payments, FX and settlement remain key frictions.

In the search for more efficient options, there has been an increasing focus on instant payment-versus-payment (PvP) solutions that allow for fast and reliable access to liquidity in foreign currency.

Rialto's technical experiment combined PvP and automated FX with tokenised central bank money settlement in a simulated cross-border payment infrastructure by building on previous work by the BIS Innovation Hub such as Project Mariana and Project Nexus.

The technical report describes the Project Rialto proof of concept, its architecture and design as well as the economic considerations regarding the viability of the Rialto technical approach.