The Bank of Korea's CBDC pilot, the second phase of the Han River project, is expected to start as early as September

According to the Korea Herald, the second phase of South Korea's central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot project "Han River Plan" is about to officially launch. The Bank of Korea and commercial banks are making final preparations for the real transaction testing of deposit tokens in the second phase. If the system development and participant recruitment preparations are completed as planned, actual transactions are expected to begin as early as September.

In the first phase transaction testing from April to June last year, 81,000 people participated through electronic wallets and conducted 114,880 transactions using deposit tokens. The first phase examined the deposit token payment system, while the second phase focuses on exploring commercialization. Additionally, the Ministry of Economy and Finance of South Korea announced in its economic growth strategy for the second half of the year released on the 15th that next year it will implement a pilot project for the tokenization of government bonds linked to the central bank's institutional-level central bank digital currency (CBDC).