EU Wants Market Participants to Write Their Own Tokenisation Rulebook

The European Central Bank, European Commission, and ESMA want banks and tech vendors to come up with unified settlement and custody rules well before proposed EU laws formally mandate them.

The European Central Bank, European Commission and European Securities and Markets Authority opened nominations for the European Tokenisation Standards Group on November 9.

Applications close on November 27, 2026, with work expected to begin in January 2027, according to the call for nominations.

Common Standards for Holding and Settlement

The group will review existing European and international tokenisation standards, identify gaps and determine where additional rules are needed, according to its mandate.

Its work will cover both connections between distributed ledger technology platforms and links between those networks and existing financial infrastructure.

Once standards are agreed, members will develop a framework to monitor their implementation. They may also recommend measures for EU authorities to encourage adoption.

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Industry representatives will chair the group and seek agreement through consensus, while the ECB, Commission and ESMA will participate as permanent observers.

Membership is open to financial firms, industry associations and technology providers, among other stakeholders. Nominees must represent organisations with a European presence and bring relevant experience in financial standards.

Work Begins Before the Legislative Requirement

The authorities want tokenisation standardisation work to start before lawmakers complete proposed changes to the DLT Pilot Regime. The group is already being formed; the legislative requirement for industry cooperation remains a proposal.

The Commission’s December 2025 Market Integration and Supervision Package would require participants in the post-trading chain, both within the pilot and beyond it, to work towards interoperability and supporting technical standards.

The existing DLT Pilot Regime, applicable since March 2023, allows authorised operators to run trading and settlement infrastructure for tokenised financial instruments with specific regulatory exemptions.

The group aims to deliver its first standards supporting Appia, the Eurosystem’s initiative for an integrated tokenised financial ecosystem, by early 2028, according to its mandate.