2026-03-22
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Modernization of Payment Rails on Dual Fronts: Institutional Tokenization and Open Banking PIS
Emerging trend with significant business impact in the 12-24 month horizon.
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Modernization of Payment Rails on Dual Fronts: Institutional Tokenization and Open Banking PIS**
**Key Finding:** The core infrastructure of payments is undergoing a fundamental modernization on two parallel fronts. Global institutions are rapidly advancing pilots for DLT-based tokenized wholesale payments to slash cross-border costs, while Open Banking's Payment Initiation Services (PIS) are seeing explosive B2B adoption for instant, low-cost domestic transactions.
**Detailed Analysis:**
On the institutional front, a powerful consortium of central and commercial banks is pushing tokenization forward. The **BIS's expansion of Project Agorá** (May 28, 2024), involving seven central banks and numerous commercial banks, aims to create a new paradigm for cross-border settlement using tokenized deposits and wholesale CBDCs. This is complemented by the successful completion of **SWIFT and Citi's tokenized deposit pilot** (May 1, 2024) and the real-world adoption of **J.P. Morgan's Onyx network by Intesa Sanpaolo** (May 2, 2024), proving the viability of DLT for efficient, atomic settlement.
Simultaneously, at the account-to-account level, Open Banking payments are hitting a critical mass. Data from **Open Banking Europe** (April 2024) shows PIS transactions grew 95% year-over-year. This is being commercialized effectively, as seen with **TrueLayer's launch of Instant Bank Payments for B2B** (May 2024), which directly challenges card networks by offering real-time, lower-fee alternatives. These two movements represent a pincer attack on the inefficiencies of traditional payment systems, promising a future of faster, cheaper, and more programmable money.
* **Source (BIS Project Agorá):** https://www.bis.org/press/p240528.htm
* **Source (TrueLayer PIS):** https://www.finextra.com/pressarticle/97495/truelayer-launches-instant-bank-payments-for-b2b-transactions
* **Source (JPM Onyx):** https://www.jpmorgan.com/solutions/cib/news/intesa-sanpaolo-onyx