South Korea’s central bank plans to cooperate with BIS to test wholesale central bank digital currency

Odaily Planet Daily News The Bank of Korea plans to cooperate with the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and other institutions to begin testing of wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC). The focus of the experiment is to explore the feasibility of a future monetary system based on wholesale CBDC. The trial will test the feasibility of a wholesale CBDC as a settlement asset for tokenized deposits at commercial banks and experiment with the programmability of tokenized deposits. In addition, oversight will be provided by South Korea’s financial regulators, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) and the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS). This move shows that the Bank of Korea is still willing to explore CBDC technology. The difference between wholesale CBDC and retail CBDC lies in their target audience and usage scenarios. Wholesale CBDC serves financial institutions, while retail CBDC is available to the public. The trial coincides with the Unified Ledger concept being developed by the Bank for International Settlements, which aims to integrate central bank digital currencies, commercial bank digital currencies and tokenized assets into a programmable network. (The Block)