The ECB, European Commission, and ESMA are accepting nominations through Nov. 27 for the European Tokenisation Standards Group, tied to the EU's Appia push.
Key Facts
The ECB, European Commission, and ESMA opened nominations Monday for the European Tokenisation Standards Group, an industry-led body that will draft common standards for tokenized financial instruments.
Applications are open to EU associations, global institutions, fintech companies, and technical providers, with nominations due by Nov. 27.
The group is set to begin work in January 2027 and deliver its initial standards by early 2028, chaired by industry members with the three EU institutions acting as observers.
The European Central Bank, European Commission, and European Securities and Markets Authority opened nominations Monday for a new industry body that will draft common standards for tokenized financial instruments across the EU.
The group, officially the European Tokenisation Standards Group (ETSG)—is backed jointly by the ECB, the Commission, and the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). It aims to close interoperability gaps as separate distributed ledger technology (DLT) networks multiply across the bloc, letting tokenized securities settle across different platforms and against legacy financial infrastructure rather than fragmenting into isolated silos.
Who Can Join the European Tokenisation Standards Group
Eligible applicants include EU industry associations, private entities, global institutions, fintech companies, and technical providers working on tokenization or DLT-based financial services, according to the group's mandate. Nominations are due by Nov. 27.
The ETSG's work will be market-driven, chaired by participants elected from among its own industry members, with the ECB, the Commission, and ESMA sitting in only as observers. The group aims to begin work in January 2027 and deliver its first set of standards by early 2028.
Beyond drafting the standards, the group will also set up a framework for monitoring compliance and may recommend ways for EU authorities to incentivize that compliance. Its mandate requires a broad, balanced membership, with no single business model, technology, or industry segment allowed to dominate the group, and its progress reports will be made public at least once a year.
Group Ties Into EU's Broader Appia Tokenization Push
The ETSG builds on the European Commission's December 2025 market integration and supervision package, which proposed amending the bloc's 2022 DLT Pilot Regime to require active post-trading entities to work toward interoperability between DLT market infrastructures and establish supporting technical standards. It also feeds into the Eurosystem's Appia roadmap, published in March 2026, which set out a broader work program for an integrated European tokenized financial ecosystem, alongside the Eurosystem's Pontes settlement system.
In a July statement cited in the group's mandate, the Eurogroup of euro-area finance ministers warned that "the multiplication of DLT networks risks recreating and compounding the fragmentation" the bloc has spent years trying to overcome. ESMA has separately sought input this year on whether tokenized collateral can be used safely at EU clearinghouses.
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