The Bank of Korea's CBDC pilot enters live testing in September with nine banks, including Woori Financial Group. The second phase targets commercialization.
The Bank of Korea will begin live-transaction testing of its central bank digital currency in September, expanding the pilot to nine banks including the country's three largest lenders.
"The Bank of Korea will provide the infrastructure for the institutional CBDC, and each bank will conduct its own business using deposit tokens," a BOK official told Yonhap News Agency. "From the second phase, we will lay the groundwork for commercialization."
The second phase adds KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Hana, and Woori Financial Group to the existing participants, along with Gyeongnam Bank and iM Bank. "The goal is to create an environment where the won can be traded freely regardless of time or place," the government said in a statement.
Only a handful of countries have launched a CBDC so far. The Bahamas introduced one in 2020, followed by Nigeria in 2021 and Jamaica in 2022, according to the Atlantic Council's CBDC tracker. Forty-one countries are now testing a CBDC, 33 have one in development, 15 have paused projects, and nine have cancelled them. The U.S. Senate last month passed a bill that would ban a federal CBDC for four years; President Trump has not signed it.
South Korean banks are also preparing for a future won-backed stablecoin. Hana Bank has begun designing systems for issuance, redemption, settlement, digital wallets, and anti-money-laundering controls, local media reported. The bank has not committed to issuing a stablecoin but is building its technology ahead of expected regulation.
Shin Hyun-son, appointed Bank of Korea Governor in April, used his first address to prioritise the CBDC and BOK-issued deposit tokens. Separately, the Ministry of Economy and Finance plans to update a seven-decade-old asset law to classify cryptocurrencies as national assets, deepening the country's push to bring blockchain into public finance.
Woori Financial Group, one of the nine banks in the pilot, holds an Alpha Score of 64, reflecting a moderate position in the financial-services sector. The September pilot will test deposit token transactions across the nine banks, a step toward commercialization, the BOK official said.
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