Foreign exchange (FX) markets are at the heart of global finance; yet, the processes for settling cross-border transactions remain slow, costly, and vulnerable to risk. 

Project Meridian FX- a collaborative experiment led by the BIS Innovation Hub’s London and Eurossytem Centres alongside central banks, including the Bank of England, Banque de France, Deutsche Bundesbank, Banca d’Italia, and the European Central Bank- set out to address these long-standing challenges. 

At the centre of the project is the concept of the synchronisation operator (SO), a technology that enables coordinated, payment-versus-payment  (PvP) settlement across different platforms and jurisdictions. Building on the original Project Meridian, the FX-focused initiative tested how the SO could support interoperability between real-time gross settlement (RTGS) systems and distributed ledger technology (DLT) platforms. 

John Jackson (Bank of England) and Stephanie Haffner (BIS Innovation Hub)  join FNA for the Payment Systems Broadcast as we explore these insights further to understand what they mean for the future of payments.