Sources: The Bank of Korea plans to resume CBDC testing.

According to Foresight News, citing sources from Decenter, the Bank of Korea recently sent a formal document regarding the second round of CBDC testing to major banks. A Bank of Korea official stated, “Details including specific methods and timelines are currently under discussion.” The second round of testing is considering the distribution of part of the government subsidies in the form of Digital Money. The goal is to use CBDC to restrict the use of subsidies and drop the management and administrative costs associated with subsidy distribution. The Bank of Korea previously launched a three-month CBDC pilot project in April, with seven participating banks, but later suspended the project. At that time, the pilot project was criticized for its limited practical application value and the burden of billions of Korean won in costs on participating banks.