The Bank of Korea and commercial banks are in final preparations for a second-phase real-transaction test of deposit tokens under Project Hangang, Yonhap News Agency reported July 20. If system development and participant recruitment stay on schedule, transactions could restart as early as September, making live CBDC-linked payments the next commercialization checkpoint.
Project Hangang tests a structure in which the central bank issues a blockchain-based wholesale CBDC and commercial banks issue deposit tokens that ordinary users can spend in real payment settings. Participating banks will expand from seven to nine, with Kyongnam Bank and iM Bank joining, while the second phase adds P2P transfers, biometric authentication and automatic deposit-token funding, making bank-led usability upgrades central to the new test round.
The earlier phase drew 81,000 e-wallet participants and 114,880 deposit-token transactions, while the next phase will also expand eligible merchants through bank partnerships. Public-sector pilots are planned for government subsidies and official expenses, leaving the key follow-up in September: whether retail payments and public disbursements can share the same CBDC-based infrastructure.
Source: Yonhap News Agency.
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