The European Central Bank will accept eligible collateral in tokenised form from 30 March 2026

• The ECB will accept as collateral for credit tokenised versions of securities and other assets it accepts already

• The tokenised assets eligible as collateral will initially be non-native only but native assets will become ECB-eligible in future

• The extension of ECB eligibility to tokenised securities is an opportunity for national and international CSDs with tokenisation platforms

The European Central Bank (ECB) says it will accept tokenised versions of eligible assets as collateral for loans from 30 March 2026.

However, the ECB has not loosened its eligibility criteria. The tokenised securities must still be issued by a central bank, bank, supranational or public agency; enjoy a high credit rating; be traded widely; and be denominated in a major reserve currency.

Most importantly, the assets must also be held in an approved – under the Central Securities Depositories Regulation (CSDR) of 2017 - central securities depository (CSD) inside the Eurozone, with transactions settled via the TARGET2-Securities (T2S) settlement system the ECB operates.

Nor is the ECB proposing to accept digitally native versions of eligible securities issued on to blockchain networks only and not deposited in CSDs.

This is likely to change. In a press release the ECB says it has “launched an ambitious work plan to explore if, how and under what criteria assets issued using DLT and not represented in eligible securities settlement systems [i.e., a CSD] could become eligible and be mobilised as Eurosystem collateral in the future.”

Native tokenised securities are not widely available anyway.

The “wholesale DLT” trials orchestrated by the ECB between and November 2024 did include testing of tokenised bond issuances and trading and margin calls on blockchains, but the next steps in making central bank money available to settle tokenised transactions do not get seriously under way until the third quarter of 2026.

Likewise, the digital government bond (“gilt”) promised by the United Kingdom government is still trapped procurement and testing procedures 14 months after Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves announced it in November 2024.

However, the ECB announcement does provide the two international central securities depositories (ICSDs) – Clearstream and Euroclear – with an obvious opportunity to encourage holders of existing ECB-eligible assets to provide a tokenised version and make them available not only for their own use at the ECB but for use by third parties in the securities lending and financing markets. Independent national CSDs have a similar opportunity.

Both Clearstream (which upgraded its D7 digital asset infrastructure in late 2025 as D7 DLT) and Euroclear (which launched its Digital Financial Market Infrastructure (D-FMI) in 2023) have built the platforms for customers to tokenise assets.

Since the core list of assets eligible to collateralise central bank money at the ECB runs to more than 30,000 debt securities issued mainly by governments, banks, supranationals and public agencies, the opportunity is not a narrow one.

Other assets might benefit more than liquid securities from highly rated issuers. The ECB does take bank loans and equities if borrowers are prepared to accept savage haircuts. Tokenising them might be operationally easier.

Since cash in the form of bank deposits is already eligible as collateral at the ECB, the announcement might also encourage European banks to do something they have so far shown little interest in doing: issue tokenised deposits.

The ECB announcement certainly puts further impetus behind the collateral markets as an avenue of growth for tokenisation.