10 European Banks Launch RL1 Blockchain Cooperative

Ten European financial institutions, including ABN AMRO, DekaBank, DZ BANK and Natixis CIB, launched Regulated Layer One, a jointly owned blockchain network for regulated financial markets, the group said in a press release published Tuesday.

The launch consolidates one of Europe's longest-running bank blockchain efforts into shared, member-owned infrastructure at a moment when tokenization pilots across the region are colliding with a fragmented patchwork of private networks. RL1 is structured as a European Cooperative Society, or SCE, domiciled in Luxembourg, and every member holds equal decision-making rights over the network's governance and development.

The network runs on infrastructure built by SWIAT, the Frankfurt-based fintech owned by DekaBank, LBBW, SC Ventures and Comyno, which transferred ownership of the network to the cooperative. The system has operated in production for three years and settled more than 50 transactions worth over 700 million euros, or about $815 million, according to the release. Henning Vollbehr, who ran SWIAT as managing director, moves over to lead the new cooperative.

"RL1 will serve as the connecting infrastructure for Europe's digital financial market, enabling participating institutions to move from isolated tokenization initiatives to an integrated, liquid, and scalable capital market ecosystem," Vollbehr said in the release.

One Member, One Vote

The founding cohort spans Germany, the Netherlands, France and Spain: ABN AMRO, Cecabank, Chartered Investment, Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale, DekaBank, DZ BANK, LBBW, Natixis CIB, SC Ventures and Seturion. NatWest, listed on RL1's site as "joining soon," participated in the initiative's first phase, and German state-owned lenders KfW and L-Bank back the project as supporters. The cooperative said talks are underway with several other European banks.

The permissioned network targets the workflows regulated institutions run: digital bond issuance, tokenized real-world assets, onchain collateral mobilization, bank-issued stablecoins, repo and derivatives margining. SWIAT's BaFin-supervised electronic securities registries will transition to run on RL1.

The release frames RL1 as a response to infrastructure the European Central Bank is already building toward, citing the ECB's Appia and Pontes initiatives for settling tokenized transactions in central bank money. A shared ledger for commercial banks, the argument goes, gives those initiatives — plus stablecoins, tokenized money market funds and digital bonds — a common settlement venue instead of a scatter of incompatible pilots.