Bank of Korea Plans to Use CBDC to Distribute Government Subsidies (Hankook)

The Bank of Korea reportedly plans to use wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) to back the distribution of over $79 billion in government subsidies in the second phase of the “Han River Project”. This move, proposed by the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, is aimed at making subsidy payments more efficient and transparent by issuing CBDC-based tokenized bank deposits to contractors instead of traditional vouchers or bank transfers. By leveraging blockchain technology, the initiative seeks to reduce fraud and improve the tracking of public funds, and it marks a significant shift from a previous pause in CBDC testing. [Source: Hankook]

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