CoinDesk
The Bank of Korea will move its central bank digital currency pilot into a live-transaction phase in September, expanding from simulation testing to real retail use across nine commercial banks, the Yonhap News Agency reported Monday. BOK will provide the underlying infrastructure while each participating bank issues and manages its own deposit tokens, according to a bank official who framed the expansion as groundwork for eventual commercialization.
The nine participating banks include KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Hana, and Woori, the four largest financial groups in the country, alongside regional lenders Gyeongnam Bank and iM Bank. The stated goal is a payment environment where the won can be moved freely regardless of time or place, Yonhap reported.
Why it matters
The phase-two expansion marks the moment a G7-economy-sized jurisdiction crosses from CBDC research into consumer-facing trial at meaningful scale. South Korea sits in a narrow global cohort: the Atlantic Council's tracker counts only a handful of countries with fully launched retail CBDCs, including the Bahamas (2020), Nigeria (2021), and Jamaica (2022), while 41 nations are still in testing. New BOK Governor Shin Hyun-son named the CBDC and BOK-issued deposit tokens as priorities in his first address in office, signaling that the institutional backing is matched by political will at the top of the central bank.
The move lands alongside two adjacent Korean pushes: commercial banks, including Hana, are already engineering infrastructure for won-backed stablecoins in anticipation of enabling legislation, and the Ministry of Economy and Finance has opened a process to update the country's decades-old national asset law to formally classify cryptocurrencies as national assets. Layered together, the three tracks sketch a coordinated Korean approach to public money, bank-issued tokenized deposits, and privately issued stablecoins operating on shared digital rails.
Market impact
The immediate market signal is regulatory and infrastructural rather than price-driven.
Frequently asked questions
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What is the Bank of Korea announcing for September?
The Bank of Korea is launching phase two of its CBDC pilot, expanding from simulation testing to real retail transactions across nine participating commercial banks, per Yonhap News Agency reporting.
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Which banks are joining the Bank of Korea CBDC pilot?
Nine banks are participating, including Korea's four largest financial groups, KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Hana, and Woori, plus regional lenders Gyeongnam Bank and iM Bank.
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What is a deposit token and how does it differ from a CBDC?
A deposit token is a bank-issued digital claim on commercial bank deposits, settled on central-bank-provided infrastructure. In BOK's model, the central bank runs the rails while each commercial bank issues and manages its own tokenized deposit.
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How does the BOK CBDC trial relate to won-backed stablecoins?
The BOK pilot runs in parallel with Korean banks, including Hana, engineering infrastructure for won-backed stablecoins ahead of enabling legislation. Together they sketch a layered Korean approach combining public CBDC, bank deposit tokens, and privately issued stablecoins.
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Which countries have already launched a retail CBDC?
According to the Atlantic Council's CBDC tracker, only a handful of countries have fully launched retail CBDCs, including the Bahamas in 2020, Nigeria in 2021, and Jamaica in 2022, while 41 nations remain in testing.
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