Overview
- The Bank of Korea and participating lenders are preparing a second, broader testing phase that will add person-to-person transfers, more users and merchants, bank-specific services, and business-to-business treasury payments.
- Commercial banks have formally asked the central bank for a long-term commercialization roadmap and dedicated resources because the expanded tests mean ongoing operations rather than a short pilot.
- Banks warn the new phase requires built or upgraded anti-money laundering systems, suspicious-transaction reporting, fraud detection tools, core-account integration, and separate budget lines to meet regulatory duties.
- Separately, Toss Bank signed an MOU with the Solana Foundation to pilot cross-border remittances, stablecoin transfers, tokenized assets and settlement models on a public blockchain, creating a parallel private-sector track.
- Deposit tokens are commercial-bank-issued digital deposits that run on Bank of Korea wholesale CBDC rails and the next tests will probe whether the system can deliver government vouchers and faster settlement while shifting material costs and compliance work onto banks.