South Korea CBDC ‘Project Hangang’ phase 2 targets 500K users

Homepage > News > Finance > South Korea CBDC ‘Project Hangang’ phase 2 targets 500K users South Korea‘s central bank, the Bank of Korea (BoK), is launching Phase 2 of its central bank digital currency (CBDC) with nine banks participating and a user cap of over 500,000 for live deposit token testing. BoK’s “Project Hangang,” the phase 2 of South Korea’s CBDC pilot project, is in the final stages of preparation, local news agency Yonhap News reported. “The Bank of Korea will provide the infrastructure for the institutional CBDC, and each bank will conduct its own business with deposit tokens. [Adding] from the second phase, we will lay the groundwork for commercialization,” a Bank of Korea official told Yonhap. According to the report, the second phase of the CBDC will take over as early as September if system development and participant recruitment preparations are completed on schedule. Joining the initial seven banks from the first phase—KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Hana, Woori, Nonghyup, Industrial Bank of Korea, and BNK Busan—are Gyeongnam Bank and iM Bank. South Korea’s central bank tested its CBDC pilot for three months last year, but user engagement remained limited. While 8...