EU calls for members of tokenized securities standards group, plans to develop first batch of standards in early 2028

The European Central Bank, European Commission, and European Securities and Markets Authority have opened applications for an industry-led working group to draft common standards for holding and settling tokenized securities, with a deadline of November 27. The group is set to begin work in January 2027, with the three EU institutions participating as observers, and aims to publish its first technical and market standards by early 2028. The standards are intended to enable tokenized securities to be held and settled across distributed ledger platforms and to improve interoperability with existing financial systems. The work will also support Appia, the Eurosystem's tokenized financial markets blueprint. It matters because a unified EU standard could reduce fragmentation across tokenization platforms and give institutional issuers a clearer compliance path. What to watch next is the composition of the working group and whether its early 2028 deliverables align with Appia's timeline.