The Bank of England has invited 18 firms to a non‑live Synchronisation Lab designed to test interoperability and atomic settlement in central bank money. The six‑month programme will probe tokenized securities, FX and collateral workflows without using real funds, aiming to inform a potential future RTGS synchronization capability.
The Synchronisation Lab builds directly on the groundwork laid by Project Meridian Securities in 2025, which demonstrated the technical feasibility of synchronized atomic settlement and explored data-sharing models with the UK’s RTGS system. In essence, Project Meridian proved that a synchronization interface could coordinate tokenized securities settlement in a way that ensured transactions either completed fully or not at all.
With that foundation in place, the Bank of England (BoE) and the BIS Innovation Hub have convened a cross-sector group for the upcoming lab. The cohort includes market infrastructure providers, global banks, fintech firms, and DLT specialists. Among the participants referenced in preparatory materials are Chainlink and UAC Labs, contributing to decentralized coordination frameworks, as well as firms such as Swift, LSEG, and Partior, which are exploring applications in foreign exchange, tokenized bonds, and collateral management.
According to programme notes from the Bank of England, the core objective is clear: to validate a system design capable of synchronizing external distributed ledger settlement with the central bank’s RTGS infrastructure. In practical terms, this means testing whether tokenized assets and digital money platforms can interact seamlessly with central bank rails without compromising settlement finality or operational control.
Design choices, constraints, and what market participants should watch
Importantly, the lab will run in a non-live environment. While this eliminates systemic risk and shields commercial balances from potential technical failures, it also limits real-world stress testing. The trade-off is intentional: a sandboxed setup enables faster iteration on complex interoperability and governance questions without exposing the financial system to experimental fragility.
The scope of the initiative is substantial but controlled. Eighteen firms are expected to participate over roughly six months of testing beginning in Spring 2026. The use cases span tokenized securities, FX settlement, collateral flows, conditional margin automation, and digital-money models.
At the infrastructure level, the focus is on synchronization with the BoE’s RT2 system and interoperability with external DLT platforms. Crucially, the work builds on the precedent set by Project Meridian, which already confirmed that synchronized settlement is technically achievable.
If synchronization works at scale, it could reduce reconciliation risk, accelerate capital turnover, and unlock trapped collateral—improving funding efficiency in repo, FX, and tokenized real-world asset markets. However, because the lab does not involve live funds, its outcomes should be interpreted as technical validation rather than a ready-to-deploy production framework.
Looking ahead, the lab’s findings will shape future design decisions around a potential live RTGS synchronization capability. The real test will be whether the Spring 2026 trials can address scalability, failover resilience, and governance across external ledgers.
