The Central Bank of Ireland plans to publish feedback on its discussion paper on distributed ledger technology, or DLT, and tokenisation in the coming weeks, together with an indication of its next steps. The timetable was outlined by Mícheál O'Keeffe, its Director of Policy and International, in a speech published on 22 October at the Blockchain Ireland Summit.
The planned publication follows a discussion paper issued in March. O'Keeffe described responses that favoured adapting existing regulatory frameworks rather than building entirely new ones. That is a summary of views received during the process, not an announcement that Ireland has adopted new tokenisation rules.
The distinction matters for firms developing systems that record or transfer financial assets on distributed ledgers. The speech sets out areas the regulator is examining, but does not provide a commencement date for new obligations or a final legal framework. Its next identified step is to explain the consultation feedback and indicate the direction of further work.
Legal recognition remains part of the policy work
According to O'Keeffe, respondents linked the recognition of ownership to the enforceability of smart contracts and the legal finality of settlement. They also highlighted recognition across borders. A technology platform can record a transaction, but these responses concern whether the surrounding legal arrangements give that record the effect its users expect.
The speech identified a practical consequence of gaps in legal recognition. Firms could have to keep conventional records alongside their on-chain registers if the latter lack sufficiently clear legal standing. O'Keeffe said that would undermine the efficiency gains sought from tokenisation, rather than simply being a question of which computer system a firm uses.
Responses also raised governance, identity and accountability, alongside risk management and the ability of systems to work together. The central bank presented these as connected requirements. It did not suggest that changing the technology removes the need to know who is responsible for a financial service or how risks are managed.
For the regulator, the transition is wider than an individual company's product launch. O'Keeffe said tokenised and conventional finance would exist together, and described continued engagement as part of developing the bank's thinking. The forthcoming feedback paper is therefore relevant to the design of financial infrastructure, not a list of approved coins or investment opportunities.
Settlement and connections between platforms
A separate part of the speech focused on the money used to complete transactions involving tokenised assets. O'Keeffe argued that access to central bank money as a settlement asset would help such transactions operate at scale. In that account, recording ownership digitally and completing the payment that settles the transaction are different parts of the same process.
He placed that work within the Eurosystem's Pontes and Appia initiatives. The speech describes Pontes as the nearer-term connection between market distributed-ledger platforms and the wholesale payments system. Appia is presented as longer-term work on the European tokenised financial ecosystem. These are existing initiatives discussed as context, not projects newly launched by the 22 October speech.
O'Keeffe also warned that separate platforms unable to settle with one another could leave finance more fragmented. His message to developers was to consider connections between systems at the design stage. Faster processing within one platform would not, by itself, answer the wider question of how assets and payments move between different platforms.
What comes next
O'Keeffe asked firms to engage with the regulator before launching products, while their designs could still be changed. He linked that engagement to reducing fragmentation and ensuring users understood the form of money they held and whether they could retrieve it. The emphasis was on how financial services operate, rather than on the technical novelty of a ledger.
For now, the concrete next step identified in the 22 October remarks is the forthcoming publication on discussion-paper responses. No exact release date was given. Readers should distinguish that expected policy update from final rules: the speech explains the regulator's current concerns and the feedback it has heard, while leaving its next formal steps to the planned publication.
Related coverage: Ireland’s planned MiCAR notification portal and ESMA’s tokenised-collateral consultation.
This report paraphrases Central Bank of Ireland material. Contains Irish Public Sector Information licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. No endorsement is implied.
