Lead: the bridge your treasurer will mention first
On 21 September 2026 the Eurosystem launched Pontes, a service that lets wholesale trades in tokenised assets settle in central bank money. The ECB named it after the Latin for bridges, which may be the most accurate product name a central bank has ever chosen.
More and more bonds and fund shares now live as digital tokens on blockchain platforms. Until now, central bank money had no regular way onto those platforms, so the cash side of a tokenised trade settled somewhere else or in riskier forms of money. Picture a courier who delivers on an e-scooter and then waits for a cheque to clear. Pontes connects those platforms to T2, the Eurosystem’s main settlement system, so the asset and the euros swap at the same moment, with the cash leg final in central bank money. In its 2024 tests the Eurosystem heard the same request again and again: market players wanted access to a risk-free settlement asset before they would scale tokenisation.
Now the limits, because the hype tax is due. Pontes is wholesale only. The participants are entities with access to T2, which means banks and similar institutions; market DLT operators must hold a licence such as authorisation under the EU’s DLT Pilot Regime. Your company will not open a Pontes account. It also starts small: a core service now, with more features and longer operating hours added step by step and full implementation expected by 2028.
Now look at who onboarded on day one: Deutsche Bank, Santander, Société Générale, DZ Bank and other lenders, issuers such as the European Investment Bank and KfW, and the Bundesbank. Those are the institutions that underwrite your bonds, hold your cash and sell you money market products. Once they can settle tokenised instruments in central bank money, expect them to pitch those instruments to you, probably before your finance team has decided whether they help.
My view: tokenisation in Europe just moved from a crypto conversation to a treasury conversation, and treasury conversations come with procurement, risk committees and auditors. That is good news. The boring people are now in charge.
Signals
AI: labels on synthetic content are due by 2 December. Under the AI Act, providers of AI systems that generate images, audio, video or text must mark the output in a machine-readable way so it can be detected as artificially generated. Systems placed on the market since 2 August 2026 must comply already; the July Omnibus gave systems already on the market before that date until 2 December 2026. If your marketing team ships AI-generated content through its own tools, ask whether you count as a provider before the vendor’s lawyers decide for you.
Supply chain: batteries get passports on 18 February 2027. From that date, every electric-vehicle battery, light-transport battery (think e-bikes and scooters) and industrial battery above 2 kWh placed on the EU market needs an electronic battery passport, reached through a QR code. The company placing the battery on the market stays legally responsible for the passport data, even if it authorises a supplier or manufacturer to maintain it. It is the first of the EU’s digital product passports, and the data comes from suppliers who may not know yet that they owe it to you.
Quantum: the EU’s post-quantum clock starts this year. Under the EU roadmap adopted in June 2025, Member States should start moving to post-quantum cryptography by the end of 2026 and protect high-risk uses, including finance, energy, health and transport, no later than the end of 2030. Full migration for every risk level is pencilled in for the end of 2035, which sounds far away until you count how many of your systems are already older than that. If you supply those sectors, expect security questionnaires to ask about your encryption plan well before any quantum computer shows up.
One question for your next board meeting
“Which of our banks already settle tokenised trades through Pontes, and what would it change for how we issue debt, invest cash or post collateral?”
Hit reply and tell me whether your treasurer has heard of Pontes yet. I read every reply.
David
Sources
European Central Bank, “Eurosystem brings central bank money to tokenised finance”, press release, 21 September 2026. https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/pr/date/2026/html/ecb.pr260921~e754847a7b.en.html
European Central Bank, Pontes (overview, design and eligibility). https://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/target/pontes/html/index.en.html
Regulation (EU) 2022/858 (DLT Pilot Regime), Official Journal, 2 June 2022. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2022/858/oj/eng
Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (AI Act), Article 50(2). https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1689/oj/eng
Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 (Digital Omnibus on AI), amended Article 111(4), Official Journal, 24 July 2026. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2026/1744/oj/eng
Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 (Batteries Regulation), Articles 13(6) and 77. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2023/1542/oj/eng
European Commission, “EU Digital Product Passport FAQ for Batteries”. https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/single-market/digital-product-passport/eu-digital-product-passport-faq-batteries_en
European Commission, “Post-Quantum Cryptography” policy page and “A Coordinated Implementation Roadmap for the Transition to Post-Quantum Cryptography”, 23 June 2025. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/post-quantum-cryptography and https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/coordinated-implementation-roadmap-transition-post-quantum-cryptography
European Commission (DG CONNECT), “Roadmap for the Transition to Post-Quantum Cryptography”, presentation hosted by ENISA, April 2026 (milestones for end-2026, end-2030 and end-2035). https://www.enisa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/2026-04/NEW-Fabiana_Da_Pieve_EC-for-sharing.pdf