European blockchain cooperative RL1 launches with €700M already on-chain

Europe’s banks have spent years experimenting with blockchain in isolation — separate pilots, incompatible ledgers, no shared settlement layer. That fragmentation is now what ten major financial institutions are trying to fix with a single, jointly owned European blockchain cooperative called RL1, formally launched on July 28.

Key takeaways

• Ten European banks launched RL1 (Regulated Layer One), a jointly owned blockchain network structured as a European Cooperative Society domiciled in Luxembourg, where each member holds an equal vote.
• The network inherits infrastructure from SWIAT, which processed more than 50 transactions worth over €700 million across three years of production before ownership transferred to the cooperative.
• Founding members span Germany, the Netherlands, France, and Spain and include ABN AMRO, DekaBank, DZ BANK, Natixis CIB, LBBW, Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale, Cecabank, SC Ventures, Chartered Investment, and Seturion.
• RL1 targets regulated workflows including digital bond issuance, tokenized real-world assets, onchain collateral mobilization, bank-issued stablecoins, and repo and derivatives margining.
• The network aligns with the European Central Bank’s Appia and Pontes initiatives, which aim to settle tokenized transactions in central bank money.

Launch of RL1: What It Is and Why Banks Built It Together

RL1 — short for Regulated Layer One — is a permissioned blockchain network built specifically for regulated financial institutions. It is not a startup, not a public chain, and not a crypto exchange. It is a cooperative infrastructure project owned collectively by the banks that use it, with no single institution holding more power than any other.

That governance design is deliberate. RL1 operates as a European Cooperative Society (SCE), domiciled in Luxembourg, with a general assembly, a supervisory board, and an operational management board. Every founding member has an equal vote. The model is intended to prevent any one institution from dominating the network’s direction — a recurring tension in industry-wide financial infrastructure projects.

The founding cohort is geographically diverse: ABN AMRO from the Netherlands; DekaBank, DZ BANK, and LBBW from Germany; Natixis CIB and Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale from France; Cecabank from Spain; and SC Ventures, Chartered Investment, and Seturion rounding out the ten. NatWest is listed as “joining soon” on the RL1 network’s site, while German state-owned lenders KfW and L-Bank are backing the project as supporters without being founding cooperative members.

RL1’s Infrastructure Comes With a Track Record

Most new financial networks launch cold — no transaction history, no proven resilience, no institutional trust built up over time. RL1 is starting from a different position.

The network runs on distributed-ledger infrastructure originally built by SWIAT, a Frankfurt-based fintech previously owned by DekaBank, LBBW, SC Ventures, and Comyno. That infrastructure had already been operating in production for three years before the cooperative launched, settling more than 50 transactions with a combined value exceeding €700 million, according to the launch statement.

Ownership of that network has now transferred to the RL1 cooperative. SWIAT itself continues as the software supplier and technical operator — a deliberate separation that leaves the banks collectively owning the rails while a specialist technology firm keeps the engines running.

Henning Vollbehr Takes the Helm

Henning Vollbehr, who served as SWIAT’s managing director, moves across to lead the new cooperative. His continuity in the role is significant: it means the person who built the production network is now guiding its transformation into shared European infrastructure. In a statement accompanying the launch, Vollbehr described RL1 as “the connecting infrastructure for Europe’s digital financial market,” framing it as the shift from fragmented tokenization pilots to an integrated capital market ecosystem.

What RL1 Is Actually Built to Do

The network targets the core workflows that regulated financial institutions actually need to run. These include digital bond issuance, tokenized real-world assets, onchain collateral mobilization, bank-issued stablecoins, and repo and derivatives margining. The emphasis is on production-grade use cases, not proof-of-concept demonstrations.

On the regulatory side, SWIAT’s BaFin-supervised electronic securities registries will migrate to run on RL1. SWIAT has indicated those services can transfer without changes to the underlying software layer, which reduces migration complexity. That said, the migration has not yet been completed.

A concrete early test case comes from KfW. The German state-owned development bank issued a €100 million blockchain bond in June and plans an autumn migration of its registrar and underlying ledger from Cashlink and Polygon to DekaBank and SWIAT/RL1. KfW also intends to connect later payments through the Eurosystem’s Pontes infrastructure, though that connection remains pending.

Alignment With the ECB’s Settlement Ambitions

Perhaps the most strategically significant aspect of RL1 is its deliberate positioning alongside central bank infrastructure. The European Central Bank’s Pontes initiative — expected to launch in the third quarter of 2026 — will connect market-side distributed ledger platforms with the Eurosystem’s TARGET Services, enabling tokenized transactions to settle directly in central bank money. The longer-term Appia program extends that vision further.

RL1 is designed to plug into both. The practical implication: rather than settling tokenized assets in commercial bank money or stablecoins issued by private entities, transactions on RL1 could eventually settle in the safest form of money available — central bank currency. That distinction matters enormously for institutional adoption and systemic risk management.

The broader strategic logic here is worth pausing on. Europe has seen dozens of tokenization pilots over the past several years, most of them isolated within individual institutions or small consortia. What RL1 attempts is a different kind of coordination — not a merger, not a platform play by one dominant bank, but a cooperative where no member can walk away with the network. If the ECB’s Pontes infrastructure lands on schedule and RL1 successfully migrates its existing registries and adds members, the combination could give European capital markets a shared settlement layer that currently does not exist in any coherent form.

Who’s In, Who’s Next, and What the Network Needs

Beyond the ten founding members, the cooperative has confirmed that talks are underway with additional European banks. NatWest’s expected near-term accession would extend the network’s reach into the UK market. The involvement of KfW and L-Bank as supporters — rather than full members — signals that state-owned institutions see value in the project even without full cooperative membership.

The network is explicitly open to additional regulated financial-market participants, and SWIAT’s eight existing technical operators are listed on the RL1 site, though the migration of those validators to the cooperative’s infrastructure is described as still intended rather than complete.

What RL1 now needs to prove is volume. The €700 million inherited from SWIAT’s three years of activity is a credible foundation, but it represents a relatively small slice of European capital markets. The workflows it targets — particularly collateral mobilization and derivatives margining — involve enormous daily flows. Whether major clearing banks, asset managers, and additional sovereign issuers bring those flows onto RL1 will define whether this remains a well-structured pilot or becomes genuine market infrastructure. KfW’s autumn bond migration is the first real-world test of that trajectory.

FAQ

What is RL1 and who launched it?

RL1, or Regulated Layer One, is a jointly owned blockchain network for regulated financial markets. It was launched on July 28, 2026, by ten European financial institutions including ABN AMRO, DekaBank, DZ BANK, Natixis CIB, LBBW, Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale, Cecabank, SC Ventures, Chartered Investment, and Seturion, spanning Germany, the Netherlands, France, and Spain.

What governance model does RL1 use?

RL1 operates as a European Cooperative Society (SCE) domiciled in Luxembourg. Each founding member holds an equal vote in the network’s governance and development through a structure comprising a general assembly, a supervisory board, and an operational management board.

What infrastructure powers RL1?

RL1 runs on distributed-ledger infrastructure originally built by the Frankfurt-based fintech SWIAT. That network operated in production for three years and settled more than 50 transactions worth over €700 million before ownership transferred to the RL1 cooperative. SWIAT continues as the software supplier and technical operator.

What financial workflows will RL1 support?

RL1 targets regulated institutional workflows including digital bond issuance, tokenized real-world assets, onchain collateral mobilization, bank-issued stablecoins, and repo and derivatives margining. BaFin-supervised electronic securities registries from SWIAT are also planned to migrate to the RL1 network.

Article produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence and reviewed by the editorial team.