Industry chairs the European Tokenisation Standards Group

The European Tokenisation Standards Group is an industry-chaired forum, sponsored by the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the European Securities and Markets Authority, whose mandate of November 9, 2026 seeks common market standards for settlement and holding of distributed-ledger financial instruments while Regulation (EU) No 909/2014 and Regulation (EU) 2022/858 stay in force.

On November 9, 2026 the European Central Bank (ECB), the European Commission and the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) asked wholesale firms to join the European Tokenisation Standards Group. Section 2.1 of the mandate tells the group to agree market standards for settlement and holding of distributed-ledger financial instruments, between distributed-ledger infrastructures and between those infrastructures and legacy systems. The Central Securities Depositories Regulation and Regulation (EU) 2022/858 stay in force, and the first Appia-related standards are aimed at early 2028. A joining depository would change its link, and a joining vendor its issuance, holding and settlement interface.

Key facts

• Call published November 9, 2026 by the ECB, the Commission and ESMA. Sources: ECB MIP news, the Commission notice and the ESMA notice.
• Applications close on November 27, 2026. The call envisages a start in January 2027. Source: annex 2.
• Members appoint a chair and a co-chair from among themselves. The ECB, the Commission and ESMA are permanent observers. Source: mandate, sections 3.1 and 3.3.
• First Appia-related standards are aimed at early 2028, with at least one public summary a year. Source: mandate, section 2.5.
• Article 3(2) of Regulation (EU) 2022/858 caps one infrastructure at an aggregate market value of EUR 6 billion. Source: Official Journal.
• The Appia consultation drew 127 responses, and 90% of respondents made at least one proposal. Source: Piero Cipollone, speech of November 5, 2026.
• Article 63(2)(g) of Regulation (EU) No 909/2014 sets a national maximum fine for a legal person of at least EUR 20 million or up to 10% of turnover. Source: consolidated CSDR.

Methodology and the documents behind the mandate

The account uses the five texts of November 9, 2026: the ECB note, the Commission notice, the ESMA notice, annex 1 and annex 2. The window runs from the 2022 pilot, through the December 2025 Market Integration and Supervision Package and the March 2026 Appia roadmap, to the July 2026 Eurogroup lines quoted in the mandate. The Union is the core jurisdiction, and the UK sandbox and the US securities statutes supply the comparison. Appia figures come from Cipollone’s speech of November 5, 2026, sandbox limits from Bank of England and Financial Conduct Authority guidance updated on June 30, 2026, and the sanction file from the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) notice of March 19, 2026 on DLT Securities GmbH.

Related:How the Bank and the FCA split systemic sterling issuers

What the mandate assigns, and what stays on the statute book

Section 3.1 gives the chair to the market. Members appoint a chair and a co-chair from among themselves and consult the Commission, ESMA and the ECB. The chair sets frequency, format and agenda, may invite an external expert as an ad hoc observer, and reports to the three sponsors. The secretary is staff of the ECB, ESMA or the Commission. Consensus follows the International Organization for Standardization footnote to section 4.1: general agreement, an absence of sustained opposition on a substantial issue, and an effort to reconcile arguments, with unanimity left outside the definition. The ECB publishes the documents by default. The permanent observers are the ECB, the Commission and ESMA, and their views count in that test. A view from any other observer stays outside the count.

The European Tokenisation Standards Group is the industry forum the Commission, ESMA and the ECB have asked the wholesale market to fill so distributed-ledger financial instruments can be settled and held across infrastructures. Section 2.1 of the mandate dated November 9, 2026 sets the objective as end-to-end interoperability between distributed-ledger infrastructures and between those infrastructures and legacy systems, together with a framework that monitors whether members use the standards and a power to recommend incentives to European Union authorities. Annex 2 calls the output a single rulebook, consistent with standards already in use, and the first versions relevant to the Eurosystem Appia roadmap are aimed at early 2028. A member needs a European presence, standardisation expertise and authority to commit its organisation. The three sponsors appoint the members and sit as permanent observers, while the chair and the co-chair come from the members after that consultation.

Section 2.3 orders the work: define interoperability, catalogue existing initiatives, find gaps against legacy standards, name the layers that still need a text, write it, monitor use, and recommend legal measures only as input to authorities. Section 2.2 ties the result to an integrated system, strategic autonomy and the euro’s international role, and it says to reuse a standard already widely accepted. Section 2.5 allows early work on settlement between Union systems, including links under Article 2(1), point (29), of Regulation (EU) No 909/2014. Reports are public unless the three sponsors agree otherwise, and the mandate ends when they dissolve the group. Annex 2 starts the group before any amendment, and a recommendation becomes law only when an authority adopts it.

How the EU, the United Kingdom and the United States divide tokenised settlement

Sources: mandate of November 9, 2026; Regulation (EU) 2022/858 and Regulation (EU) No 909/2014; Bank of England and Financial Conduct Authority sandbox guidance updated June 30, 2026; Hester Peirce, statement of July 9, 2025, as read on November 10, 2026.

In the Union the pilot is a regulation with a value cap, and the group is an industry text underneath it. In the United Kingdom the sandbox is a glidepath: Gate 1 is testing, Gate 2 is live activity under the limits above, and Gate 4 is a possible permanent regime. The FIX Trading Community’s note to the Financial Conduct Authority and the Bank of England is a market submission on data gaps, and the firms who sent it do not appoint a chair.

A central securities depository that wants a tokenised instrument to move between a legacy system and a distributed-ledger system meets three rule sets at once, and only one of them is the European industry text now being recruited. Under Article 3(1) of Regulation (EU) 2022/858 a share is eligible only below EUR 500 million of issuer market capitalisation, a plain bond only below EUR 1 billion of issue size, and an eligible fund unit only below EUR 500 million of assets under management. Article 3(2) stops a new admission that would take the aggregate on that infrastructure to EUR 6 billion. Bank of England guidance updated on June 30, 2026 sets a sterling gate of £600 million for UK government debt and £900 million for sterling corporate bonds at the first live stage. Commissioner Hester Peirce’s statement of July 9, 2025 says tokenised securities remain securities. A European holding standard can align the messages, while each of those three ceilings stays on its own statute.

Washington has no sponsored industry group writing a settlement rulebook for its members to monitor. DTCC’s tokenisation launch runs on a staff clock, the innovation exemption for tokenised national-market-system stock is a Commission order, and the time-of-trade check for a tokenised-stock venue is a market-structure question inside the same statutes. A European message format answers none of those points.

“For assets and services to interact across platforms, common standards are needed. Liquidity and collateral must be able to move. And the legal framework must provide clarity on issues such as ownership, settlement finality, custody and smart contracts.”

— Piero Cipollone, Member of the Executive Board, European Central Bank (ECB, speech in Tirana, November 5, 2026)

What the DLT Securities GmbH fines show about the statute beside the standard

On March 19, 2026 BaFin published a notice that three administrative fines, together EUR 140,000, had been imposed on DLT Securities GmbH, a securities institution in Frankfurt. The order has been legally binding since February 18, 2026. BaFin cites section 6(1) of the German Anti-Money Laundering Act, which requires principles, procedures and controls against money laundering and terrorist financing. The failures run at least from May 1, 2022 to February 18, 2025: customer-due-diligence controls were inadequately designed, were left un-updated despite the need to update them, and the digitised customer-risk procedure was left without a control action. A digitised procedure is judged by whether someone tested it, while the group’s monitoring framework asks whether a member used the agreed settlement standards.

Article 63(2)(g) of Regulation (EU) No 909/2014 requires, for specified infringements, a national maximum for a legal person of at least EUR 20 million or up to 10% of turnover. A consensus minute leaves that floor in place. ESMA’s call for evidence on tokenised collateral tests liquidity under the European Market Infrastructure Regulation and leaves the eligible-asset list unchanged. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Letter 26-30 is a staff letter on trust-company clearing, a permission inside an existing statute.

What this means for CSDs, tokenisation vendors and compliance teams

A depository that joins must, under section 3.3, commit the organisation and resource the work. If the standards land, that commitment shows up in the link the mandate ties to Article 2(1), point (29), of Regulation (EU) No 909/2014: the arrangement under which one depository participates in another’s settlement system. Extended to distributed-ledger systems, the specification would cover the top-tier account, the settlement instruction and the path back to a legacy system, instead of a fresh interface for every vendor. The monitoring framework would then check use in the relevant segment. A depository that stays outside keeps its authorisation, and any pilot permission, with no new statutory duty from the call itself.

A tokenisation vendor that joins the European Tokenisation Standards Group maps issuance, holding and settlement onto the agreed layers. A member depository will map the vendor’s issuance, holding and settlement interface onto the agreed layers, because the member has committed the firm. Section 2.3 starts with a catalogue and tells the group to reuse a widely accepted standard, so a vendor can argue for listing that standard and for showing where a cross-ledger link still fails. A product stuck on one network misses section 2.1. Ownership, finality, custody and smart contracts stay with the legal framework through task 5, a recommendation to authorities. A venue still needs its pilot permission, and Article 3 still caps the instrument. The form, due on November 27, 2026 and questioned via ETSG@ecb.europa.eu, is an application for a seat. Fund managers and compliance teams meet the standard in the settlement cycle and keep the authorisation file on its own statute.

“As powerful as blockchain technology is, it does not have magical abilities to transform the nature of the underlying asset. Tokenized securities are still securities. Accordingly, market participants must consider—and adhere to—the federal securities laws when transacting in these instruments.”

— Hester Peirce, Commissioner, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC, statement, July 9, 2025)

What stays open once nominations close

Annex 2 sets applications for November 27, 2026 and envisages that the group starts work in January 2027, an expectation in the nomination paper rather than a commencement order. The mandate aims the first Appia-related standards at early 2028. In December 2025 the Commission proposed pilot amendments that would themselves create an industry group for settlement standards. This mandate lets the European Tokenisation Standards Group start some of that work early, so the Union can avoid two colleges if the co-legislators adopt the statutory task. Until that vote, a client contract that treats the anticipated text as an article of an amended Regulation (EU) 2022/858 is ahead of the Official Journal.

Appia is why the call came before the vote. On November 5, 2026 Cipollone described Pontes, launched on September 21, 2026, as the bridge from market ledgers to TARGET Services for central-bank-money settlement. The 2024 trials involved 64 participants, more than 50 experiments and almost EUR 1.6 billion, and Pontes has since settled a EUR 1 billion European Stability Mechanism bond issued on a distributed ledger. The Appia consultation drew 127 responses, 90% of them with at least one offer to contribute. Section 3.3 stops any one business model dominating the seats, and ECB publication lets outsiders check the declared consensus.

TL;DR

The European Tokenisation Standards Group is the industry body the ECB, the Commission and ESMA called on November 9, 2026. Members appoint the chair and the co-chair. The three sponsors observe, and only their views count in the consensus test. The mandate assigns settlement and holding standards, a monitoring framework for members, and a power to recommend incentives, while Regulation (EU) No 909/2014 and Regulation (EU) 2022/858 stay in force, including the EUR 6 billion cap in Article 3(2). Work is envisaged from January 2027, with the first Appia-related standards aimed at early 2028. The Appia consultation drew 127 responses, and 90% offered a contribution, Piero Cipollone said on November 5, 2026. A joining depository commits its link, and a joining vendor commits its interface.

FAQ

Who chairs the European Tokenisation Standards Group?

Members appoint the chair and a co-chair from among themselves, after consulting the Commission, ESMA and the European Central Bank. Section 3.1 of the mandate of November 9, 2026 gives that chair the agenda, the rhythm of meetings and the judgment on consensus, using the ISO definition in the mandate’s footnote. No person is named in the call, because the members are still to be appointed. The secretary is staff of one of the three sponsors, and that role supports the chair rather than replacing the appointment the members make.

Who only observes, and whose views count?

The European Central Bank, the European Commission and ESMA are permanent observers. They may speak, and section 3.3 includes their views when the chair decides whether consensus exists. Other observers may be invited for a single agenda item, and the mandate keeps that number small. A comment from one of those extra observers is heard and then left outside the count. The same treatment applies to an ad hoc expert. The pen stays with the members, and the sponsors keep a defined weight inside the test the chair applies.

Does the mandate replace the pilot regime or the CSDR?

Regulation (EU) 2022/858 still decides who may operate a distributed-ledger venue or settlement system, and Article 3 still caps shares, bonds and fund units, with an aggregate of EUR 6 billion on one infrastructure. Regulation (EU) No 909/2014 still governs depositories, links under Article 2(1), point (29), and the Article 63 sanctioning floor. Annex 2 starts the group before any amendment, and without prejudice to the co-legislators’ final text. The industry rulebook binds the members who commit to it, and the two regulations continue beside that commitment.

What changes for a depository or a tokenisation vendor?

A member depository would build its link to the group’s specification, covering the top-tier account and the path back to a legacy system, instead of a fresh interface for every chain. Monitoring would then check use in that segment, while a depository outside the group keeps its current authorisation. A vendor would map issuance, holding and settlement to the agreed layers, and section 2.3 invites an existing widely used standard into the catalogue. A network that cannot pass an instrument onward misses section 2.1, and Article 3 of the pilot stays in the statute either way.

How does a firm ask for a seat, and how does the UK sandbox differ?

Annex 2 asks for the form by November 27, 2026 and envisages a start in January 2027. The sponsors assess expertise, a European presence and the ability to commit the firm, and they balance geography and firm type under section 3.3. The UK sandbox is a separate instrument: guidance updated on June 30, 2026 lets a digital securities depository go live at Gate 2 inside a £900 million sterling corporate-bond limit, and the Bank charges £40,000 on that approval. The European group writes standards and issues no Sandbox Approval Notice of its own.

This article is informational analysis only and does not constitute legal, regulatory, tax, or investment advice. Regulatory frameworks change frequently and interpretation depends on facts and circumstances; primary documents and official regulator guidance always supersede summaries. Firms should consult qualified legal counsel and their relevant supervisory authority before taking any action based on the analysis above.