ECB and EU Regulators Seek Members for Tokenized Securities Standards Group

The European Central Bank (ECB), European Commission and European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) are seeking industry and public-sector participants for a standards group intended to promote interoperability across tokenized financial markets.

The European Tokenisation Standards Group will be chaired by industry participants. The ECB, Commission and ESMA will serve as observers.

The call includes EU associations, private entities and public-sector bodies, as well as global institutions, fintech firms and technology providers working in tokenization or distributed ledger technology (DLT) financial services. Each nominee must represent an entity with a European presence.

The group’s mandate covers technical and market standards for DLT financial instruments moving between separate DLT infrastructures and between DLT and legacy infrastructures. The scope includes how those instruments are held and settled. Common market standards are intended to promote interoperability, while fragmentation in tokenized markets is a concern behind the effort.

Members will develop a framework to monitor effective use and compliance, support implementation of the standards by group members and foster market-wide adoption. The group may also recommend measures to EU public authorities to incentivize compliance.

Work is expected to begin in January 2027, with initial standards targeted for early 2028 to support the Eurosystem’s Appia tokenized-finance initiative. Applications are due Nov. 27.