The Bank of Korea (BOK) is preparing to launch a pilot program in which 100,000 participants were involved at the beginning of April to test its Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) in Real-World transactions.
Project Hangang, an initiative of three months that runs until the end of June, includes seven South Korean banks, including KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Hana, Woori, NH Nonghyup, BNK Busan Bank and the Industrial Bank or Korea.
Participants will convert deposits of traditional bank accounts into depositors, which can be used for daily purchases with selected traders via bank apps that use QR code payments. Individual token interests will be covered at 1 million (~ $ 690), with a cumulative value of 5 million won for the pilot duration.
Per Korea Times participating traders include 7-Eleven, Hanaro Mart, Kyobo Bookstore and Ediya Coffee, in addition to online platforms such as Hyundai Home Shopping. The initiative is structured to evaluate the viability of CBDCs when simplifying the current payment and settlement systems, which makes transaction costs possible to make it possible to make real-time seller shocks possible.
De Bok is planning to request public participants for Project Hangang later this month. According to a BOK officer quoted by Korea Times, the pilot wants to minimize intermediary roles within transactions, so that the practical efficiency of a CBDC model is assessed compared to traditional banking processes.
This Real-World test phase builds on the earlier CBDC research initiatives of South Korea and marks an important step in the direction of CBDC integration in daily economic activity. The pilot comes in accordance with broader global efforts led by institutions such as the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), which in 2030 projects widespread acceptance of CBDCs in both retail and wholesale capacities.
The experiment represents an escalation from theoretical modeling to practical application, in which South Korea is situated in a growing group of countries that actively evaluate the viability of CBDCs for the use of retail.