Bank of Korea releases a report on global CBDC progress

• The Bank of Korea has researched the progress of central bank digital currencies (CBDC) around the world. 
• The bank analyzed the CBDC projects of 14 central banks.
• The report outlined that most central banks are currently developing IT systems to examine the feasibility of the existing CBDC model.

The Bank of Korea, South Korea’s central bank, has researched central bank digital currencies (CBDC) around the globe. The bank recently released its “Overseas CBDC Progress Report,” in which the institution analyzed the CBDC projects of 14 central banks.

According to the bank, three main factors are driving central banks to research and develop CBDCs. These include – recent advances in payment settlements, decentralized ledger technology and the sharp declines in cash use. The report outlined that most central banks are currently developing IT systems to examine the feasibility of the existing CBDC model. 

Central banks in Sweden, Singapore, Canada, Japan, Thailand and Hong Kong are implementing distributed ledger technology in their own CBDC research, as per the report. Bank of Korea went on to explain: 

Most central banks are focusing on research on whether new future-oriented technologies can be applied to CBDCs, away from the centralized ledger management and account-based transactions that are currently applied to payment and settlement systems.

On the one hand, Norway, the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, the Bahamas, Sweden, the UK and China are researching CBDCs for micropayments. On the other hand, Switzerland, Singapore, Canada, Thailand, Hong Kong and France are exploring the use cases of CBDC in managing large sums of money. Bank of Korea noted that it is considering using multiple distributed ledger platforms like Hyperledger Fabric and Coda in its own CBDC project.