Major European Banks Form RL1 Blockchain Cooperative to Unify Tokenized Asset Markets
Ten financial institutions establish Luxembourg cooperative to run shared DLT network for tokenized bonds and digital money.
A consortium of ten prominent European banking and investment institutions has formally established Regulated Layer One (RL1), a collaborative blockchain initiative designed to create a shared, permissioned infrastructure for tokenized financial instruments and digital currency.
Incorporated in Luxembourg as a European Cooperative Society—a legal structure under EU law that facilitates cross-border governance across member states—RL1 gives each founding entity equal voting rights over the network’s operational rules and future technical roadmap. The founding cohort comprises ABN AMRO, Cecabank, Chartered Investment, Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale, DekaBank, DZ BANK, LBBW, Natixis CIB, SC Ventures, and Seturion.
The initiative addresses a persistent bottleneck in capital markets, where individual financial firms have historically deployed isolated distributed ledger technology platforms. By operating separate ledgers, institutions risk fragmenting liquidity and creating operational silos that complicate secondary market trading. RL1 aims to serve as a common settlement layer capable of supporting digital money, tokenized bonds, collateral movement, and automated delivery-versus-payment workflows.
The underlying technology was originally developed by Frankfurt-based fintech Secure Worldwide Interbank Asset Transfer (SWIAT), which has transferred ownership of the network to the new cooperative. Prior to the transfer, SWIAT operated the platform in production for three years, settling more than 50 transactions with a total volume exceeding 700 million euros (approximately $808 million).
Former SWIAT managing director Henning Vollbehr has been appointed to lead RL1 as executive director. The platform continues to receive strategic support from German state-backed development institutions KfW and L-Bank, while the cooperative is actively negotiating expansion with other European lenders, including UK-headquartered NatWest.
The cooperative’s rollout coincides with broader regulatory efforts across the continent, such as the European Securities and Markets Authority DLT Pilot Regime, which provides market participants with a structured framework to issue, trade, and settle tokenized securities under existing financial market safeguards.
