SWIFT said it completed a trial that settled tokenized bond transactions using Société Générale’s EUR CoinVertible (EURCV) stablecoin alongside cash. The test brought SWIFT together with SG-FORGE, BNP Paribas Securities Services, and Intesa Sanpaolo to run a full settlement flow for tokenized bonds.
The stated goal was to prove that familiar interbank infrastructure can coordinate blockchain-based assets and reach near-real-time finality while staying within a MiCA-compliant setup. In short, the pilot aimed to modernize settlement without forcing institutions to abandon established operating models.
How the pilot ran end to end
The trial showcased market operations on a public blockchain implementation of EURCV, covering issuance through lifecycle events. SWIFT said the pilot included tokenized bond issuance, delivery-versus-payment settlement with EURCV, automated coupon payments, and redemption.
SWIFT noted that EURCV is deployed on the Ethereum network and that the stablecoin was already MiCA-compliant as of July 1, 2024. ISO 20022 messaging was used to coordinate settlement instructions and supporting services across legacy systems and the blockchain environment.
What this signals for institutional workflows
BNP Paribas Securities Services and Intesa Sanpaolo participated as paying agents and custodians, underscoring the institutional “plumbing” needed to support tokenized debt at scale. By enabling atomic delivery-versus-payment, the setup was positioned as a way to reduce counterparty exposure and shorten settlement compared with conventional T+2 or T+3 cycles.
The organizers described the outcome as a step toward better operational efficiency, while also acknowledging that the trial did not publish performance figures such as latency or throughput. That lack of hard metrics means the proof is directional, not yet a full operational benchmark.
Thomas Dugauquier, Tokenised Assets Product Lead at SWIFT, said the pilot “demonstrates how interoperability will shape the future of capital markets, enabling customers to adopt digital assets with confidence and at scale.” The message from SWIFT is that standard connectivity, not a single chain, is the unlock for broader adoption.
For treasuries and trading desks, the appeal is faster finality with a standardized messaging layer that can keep back-office routines familiar. At the same time, the key risk areas remain smart contract security, custody arrangements, and how cleanly on-chain and off-chain processes connect.
Looking ahead, market participants will watch for additional deployments across SWIFT’s network of more than 11,000 financial institutions and follow-up tests that disclose performance and resilience details. Those next steps will determine whether stablecoin settlement for tokenized bonds becomes routine infrastructure rather than a controlled pilot.