Quick answer: The Regulated Liability Network (RLN) is a proposed shared ledger where central bank money and commercial bank deposits are represented as tokens on one platform, while keeping today’s two-tier banking structure. In 2024, UK Finance ran an experimentation phase with technology from Quant and R3 that tested tokenised deposits and programmable payments. ISO 20022, the structured messaging standard, is the data layer these rebuilt rails lean on.
Updated 07/17/2026. By Jake Claver. Educational content, not investment advice.
“Rebuilding the payment rail” sounds like a slogan until you look at what is actually being tested. The RLN is one of the more concrete efforts, because it comes with a whitepaper, a bank-led pilot, and a published technical report. This piece walks through what the RLN is, what the UK experiment found, and where Quant, R3, and ISO 20022 fit, using the primary documents rather than press summaries.
What the Regulated Liability Network is
The RLN is a design for a shared ledger of “regulated liabilities”: the IOUs that make up modern money, including central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits. The idea is to put them all on a common tokenised platform so they can move with programmability and settlement finality, without collapsing the distinction between public money and private bank money. The New York Fed’s Regulated Liability Network proof-of-concept frames it as a possible “new global settlement infrastructure based on regulated issuers and instruments” that keeps “the two-tier structure of public and regulated private balance sheets.” That two-tier point is the whole design: it is not trying to replace banks or central banks, but to give them a shared rail.
What the UK pilot actually tested
In September 2024, UK Finance published the results of a UK RLN experimentation phase. It was not a small demo. The work involved a group of UK banks and card networks alongside advisers and a technology team, and it examined how a single platform could handle different forms of money, including existing and tokenised deposits. You can read the full UK Finance RLN technical report. Its headline conclusions were practical:
- A shared tokenisation platform could deliver economic value and support market innovation.
- New functionality such as programmable payments and the locking and unlocking of funds could work across a range of use cases.
- Newer firms could get a single, common point of access to interface with established institutions.
Where Quant and R3 fit
The pilot split the stack. R3 provided the distributed ledger capability using its Corda platform, and Quant supplied the orchestration and API layer using its Overledger technology. In plain terms: the ledger records who holds what, and the orchestration layer is the connective tissue that lets different institutions and forms of money interact through a common interface. That division matters, because a real payment system needs both a place to record value and a standard way for many parties to talk to it.
Why ISO 20022 belongs in this story
A rebuilt rail is only as good as the data moving across it. ISO 20022 is the international standard for structured financial messaging, and it carries far richer, more consistent payment data than the older formats it is replacing across the world’s payment systems. For a network meant to coordinate tokenised money across many regulated issuers, a shared data standard is what keeps messages, settlement, and reporting legible to every participant. The RLN and ISO 20022 are not the same thing, but a tokenised rail without a common data standard would just recreate today’s fragmentation in a new format.
How this lines up with the BIS unified ledger
The RLN is not an outlier idea. The Bank for International Settlements has described a strikingly similar concept. Its 2023 chapter on the future monetary system lays out a “unified ledger” that brings central bank digital currency, tokenised deposits, and other tokenised assets onto one programmable platform, and argues that “settlement in central bank money ensures the singleness of money and payment finality.” That is the same two-tier instinct the RLN is built around. The convergence between a bank-industry pilot and the BIS blueprint is part of why this line of work is worth watching.
Why this matters
Payments are a repeat-use, high-volume business, so the infrastructure that wins tends to compound. If tokenised regulated money settles on shared ledgers with a common data standard, it changes how banks, fintechs, and eventually cross-border corridors connect. That is an infrastructure story about how value moves, and it is separate from any claim about a specific token or company’s investment merit. The RLN pilot proved feasibility for certain use cases; it did not settle questions of rollout, cost, or governance, which remain open.
Common questions
What is the Regulated Liability Network in simple terms?
It is a proposed shared ledger where central bank money and commercial bank deposits are represented as tokens on one platform. It keeps the two-tier structure of public and private money while adding programmability and faster settlement.
What did the UK Finance RLN pilot find?
The 2024 experimentation phase concluded that a shared tokenisation platform could deliver economic value, support programmable payments and the locking and unlocking of funds across several use cases, and give newer firms a common point of access to established institutions.
What did Quant and R3 do in the RLN pilot?
R3 provided the distributed ledger using its Corda platform, and Quant provided the orchestration and API layer using its Overledger technology, so different institutions and forms of money could interact through a common interface.
How does ISO 20022 relate to the RLN?
ISO 20022 is the structured messaging standard for financial data. It is the common data layer that lets a tokenised, multi-issuer rail keep messages, settlement, and reporting consistent across participants.
Is the RLN the same as the BIS unified ledger?
No, but they share the same design instinct. The BIS 2023 unified ledger concept also puts central bank money, tokenised deposits, and tokenised assets on one programmable platform, with settlement in central bank money for finality.
This content is educational only. It is not tax, legal, or investment advice. Check primary sources and speak with a qualified professional before making financial decisions.
