The Bank of Korea will expand its digital won pilot Project Hangang to nine banks and up to 500,000 users from September, testing government subsidy payments with real public money for the first time. The expansion follows a first phase between April and June 2025 that opened 81,000 wallets against a 100,000-participant cap, with about 42% of those wallets used to spend tokens. Project Hangang runs on a two-layer design, with the Bank of Korea issuing a wholesale central bank digital currency that banks use to settle between themselves, while commercial banks issue deposit tokens representing customer money that people spend at shops.
Kim Dong-seop, who heads the bank's Digital Currency Planning Team, described the arrangement as "a middle ground between a CBDC and a stablecoin".
Phase One Opens 81,000 Wallets With 42% Active Usage
The first phase ran from April to June 2025 with seven banks and about 12,000 merchants, among them 7-Eleven, Ediya Coffee and the bookseller Kyobo. It opened 81,000 wallets against a cap of 100,000 participants and processed 114,880 transactions, with roughly 42% of the wallets used to spend tokens.
Users could hold a maximum of 1 million won (AU$967) at a time and convert 5 million won (AU$4,835) across the trial, and 1.64 billion won (AU$1.59 million) was converted in total. Banks bore the build-out costs, with the Human Rights Foundation's CBDC tracker putting their combined outlay at about 30 billion won (AU$29.02 million) for infrastructure and merchant recruitment.
Phase Two Adds Peer-to-Peer Transfers and Government Subsidy Testing
The second phase adds peer-to-peer transfers, biometric authentication and automated deposit-token features, and lets participating banks bring their own partner merchants in. It will also route real government subsidies through the system, starting with electric-vehicle charging payments, to test distribution timing, traceability and reconciliation.
Gyeongnam Bank and iM Bank join KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Hana and Woori among the nine participants, and the discount chain Daiso is being added to the merchant list. The phase is open-ended, with no fixed close date. A Bank of Korea official said that "from the second phase, we will lay the groundwork for commercialization".
FAQ
What is Project Hangang's two-layer design?
Project Hangang uses a two-layer architecture where the Bank of Korea issues a wholesale central bank digital currency that banks use to settle between themselves, while commercial banks issue deposit tokens representing customer money that people spend at shops. Kim Dong-seop, who heads the bank's Digital Currency Planning Team, described this arrangement as "a middle ground between a CBDC and a stablecoin".
How many wallets were opened in the first phase of the digital won pilot?
The first phase between April and June 2025 opened 81,000 wallets against a cap of 100,000 participants. About 42% of those wallets were used to spend tokens, and the pilot processed 114,880 transactions with seven banks and about 12,000 merchants including 7-Eleven, Ediya Coffee and Kyobo.
What new features does phase two of Project Hangang include?
Phase two adds peer-to-peer transfers, biometric authentication and automated deposit-token features. It will route real government subsidies through the system starting with electric-vehicle charging payments to test distribution timing, traceability and reconciliation. Gyeongnam Bank and iM Bank join the existing seven banks, and the discount chain Daiso is being added to the merchant list.
