South Korea intends to distribute its upcoming central bank digital currency (CBDC) next year as part of a broader 22-month pilot test, local news outlet Korea Herald said Wednesday.
The BOK intends to run the pilot tests until December 2021 with the distribution and circulation test being the final step of a three-phase CBDC program, the report said.
Of the first two phases: Phase 1 involved the research and design of a CBDC and ended in July, while Phase 2 is ongoing and involves seeking third-party consultation on the overall scope of the digital currency project.
The report noted the CBDC project utilizes blockchain technology to track all digital transactions. However, the BOK still maintains that such tests do not necessarily mean a CBDC will be launched as the ongoing project remains in a strict testing and assessment phase only.
South Korea takes another step toward a central bank digital currency
The central bank of South Korea has launched a legal advisory panel to work out how to implement a central bank digital currency, or CBDC. The Bank of Korea’s panel comprises legal professors and top fintech lawyers, reported The Korea Times today. The panel will reportedly discuss regulatory hurdles until at least May of next year, and the bank wants to develop the CBDC in a little under two years; it wants to finish a pilot test before the end of 2021. The plans for Korea’s own CBDC kicked o...
Korea’s digital currency ambitions were restarted earlier this year after the BOK saw similar developments and increased CBDC research in countries like Japan and the US, an earlier report said. The move came even as a special cryptocurrency research team was dissolved in January 2019 by the Korean government.
Meanwhile, the Korean CBDC project follows in the footsteps of neighboring China. As per an announcement by the People’s Bank of China yesterday, over 1.1 billion yuan ($162 million) spread over three million individual settlements were completed in an ongoing pilot test of its own CBDC, officially the “Digital Currency, Electronic Payment.”
China’s Central Bank Transacts $160 Million in Digital Yuan
The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) has processed over three million transactions—worth 1.1 billion yuan ($162 million) as part of its trial of the DCEP (Digital Currency, Electronic Payment), its pilot for a central bank digital currency (CBDC). Speaking at virtual conference Sibos 2020 on Monday, the PBoC’s deputy governor Fan Yi Fei noted that, “An aggregate of 113,300 personal digital wallets and 8,859 corporate digital wallets have been opened […] up until late August.” Join Fan Yi Fei, Depu...
But Korea’s not willing to be left far behind.
