The Bank of England, Monetary Authority of Singapore, and Bank of Thailand successfully completed Project Mariana, a trial demonstrating simultaneous cross-border currency settlement using distributed ledger technology.
The experiment utilized DLT platforms to facilitate atomic swaps of tokenized deposits—direct, real-time exchange of tokenized British pounds, Singapore dollars, and Thai baht without intermediaries. The process eliminated settlement risk, a critical vulnerability in conventional correspondent banking where funds can be tied up for days across multiple institutions.
Because both sides of a transaction completed at the exact same moment, neither party faced default risk. The underlying DLT provided a single, immutable ledger for all transactions, enhancing transparency and auditability. This directly addresses inefficiencies in the existing correspondent banking model, which relies on pre-funding and staggered processing.
For investors holding positions in cross-chain interoperability or institutional liquidity protocols, the trial signals central banks are actively exploring the same infrastructure powering decentralized finance. The validation reduces friction for future integration between traditional finance and digital asset markets. Reduced transaction costs and faster settlement times could drive institutional capital into compliant digital asset platforms.
The three central banks plan to publish a comprehensive report detailing Project Mariana's technical findings and policy implications in early 2027. The report will outline specific architectural designs and legal frameworks necessary for broader implementation. Further collaborative trials are expected to explore additional tokenized asset classes beyond currency exchange, including securities and commodities.
