South Korea's central bank is moving its digital won work into a September live-transaction test with nine banks, CoinDesk reported, making deposit tokens the operating layer for the next phase rather than a standalone retail wallet experiment.

The Bank of Korea pilot gives the central bank control of the institutional CBDC infrastructure while participating lenders issue and manage the deposit tokens used in their own services.

This structure brings commercial banks into the test instead of leaving them as later distributors of a finished central-bank product.

September Test Brings Nine Banks Into Deposit Tokens

CoinDesk, citing Yonhap News Agency, said the second phase is scheduled for September and will include real-transaction testing.

A BOK official told YNA that the central bank would provide the institutional CBDC infrastructure and that each bank would conduct its business through deposit tokens.

The participating bank list includes Gyeongnam Bank, iM Bank, KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Hana and Woori Financial Group, making the phase broader than a small technical trial.

The mechanism keeps the customer-facing banking relationship with lenders while the settlement layer remains tied to BOK infrastructure.

For payment firms, banks and wallet providers, the trial tests whether a central-bank-backed system can support bank-issued token balances without moving directly to a mass-market CBDC rollout.

CBDC Work Runs Beside Won Stablecoin Planning

The September pilot sits next to South Korea's private-sector stablecoin preparation.

Hana Bank has begun designing systems for a possible won-backed stablecoin, including issuance, redemption, settlement, digital wallets and anti-money-laundering controls, while the bank has not committed to issuing one.

The parallel track gives Korean lenders two related but different payment experiments.

The CBDC programme uses central-bank infrastructure and deposit tokens; the stablecoin work prepares bank systems for legislation and competition around won-backed private tokens.

Shin Hyun-son, named Bank of Korea Governor in April, used his first address in office to prioritise the CBDC and BOK-issued deposit tokens, according to CoinDesk.

South Korea's Ministry of Economy and Finance has also announced plans to update a seven-decade-old national asset law so cryptocurrencies can be classified as national assets.

Atlantic Council Tracker Shows Limited CBDC Launches

The global benchmark remains limited.

The Atlantic Council's CBDC tracker lists CBDC launches in the Bahamas in October 2020, Nigeria in 2021 and Jamaica in 2022, while 41 countries are testing a CBDC and 33 more have one in development.

The tracker also lists 15 inactive CBDC projects and nine cancellations.

In the U.S., the Senate passed a bill last month with a four-year CBDC ban that President Donald Trump had not signed into law.

The September test still lacks a public commercial launch date and a named retail digital-won product.