The Bank of Korea has successfully completed live cross-border payment tests under the Bank for International Settlements' Project Agora, achieving final settlement in an average of just 80 seconds from payment instruction. This milestone marks a significant advance in tokenized settlement infrastructure, linking domestic financial institutions with international counterparts across six major currencies.
During the exercise, 28 central banks and financial institutions processed transactions worth approximately 800,000 Swiss francs through 17 distinct scenarios. These included single-currency payments, dual-currency payments, foreign exchange settlements, internal group transfers, and payment-versus-payment settlements designed to reduce counterparty risk. The platform remained stable under near-live operational conditions, demonstrating its capacity to support complex cross-border banking processes.
South Korea's participation involved five commercial banks — KB Kookmin, NongHyup, Shinhan, Woori, and Hana Bank — and a direct interbank transfer of 20 million won between NongHyup and Shinhan using tokenized central bank reserves. The Bank of Korea issued, transferred, and redeemed these reserves after receiving payment instructions, proving the concept of connecting central bank money with tokenized commercial bank systems. A manual link between the domestic Project Hangang and the Bank of Korea’s existing financial network validated interoperability with the wider Agora platform.
In a separate highlight, KB Kookmin Bank became the first South Korean commercial bank to complete a yen-based deposit token payment test with Japan’s MUFG Bank, paving the way for expanded cross-border token settlement work in later stages of the project.
The trials are part of South Korea's broader digital payment strategy, which separates deposit tokens — backed by a wholesale central bank framework — from stablecoins that remain under a separate regulatory track through the proposed Digital Asset Basic Act. Authorities plan to continue testing additional scenarios and move toward more automated settlement processes, reinforcing the country's ambition to upgrade its payment infrastructure without disrupting existing merchant terminals.
