Bank of Korea and Bank of England Deepen Tokenization Cooperation

The Bank of Korea is expanding cooperation with the Bank of England on tokenization projects as central banks examine how digital forms of money could improve payment and settlement systems.

Sarah Breeden, the Bank of England’s deputy governor for financial stability, visited the South Korean central bank on Monday. She met Bank of Korea officials to exchange views on innovation in payments and settlement, according to the Korean central bank.

Officials from the two institutions also shared updates on major tokenization initiatives. Their discussions included Project Agora, an international program led by the Bank for International Settlements, and Project Hangang, the Bank of Korea’s domestic blockchain-based pilot.

Project Agora is studying how tokenized commercial bank deposits and tokenized wholesale central bank money could be used to improve the global financial system, with a particular focus on cross-border payments. The project brings central-bank money and commercial-bank money into a shared exploration of new digital settlement infrastructure.

Project Hangang, meanwhile, is testing digital currency and wholesale central bank digital currency in a blockchain-based framework. The Bank of Korea has described the initiative as a live pilot of a unified ledger integrating wholesale central bank digital currency with tokenized deposits.

Tokenization converts an asset or sensitive data into a digital representation known as a token. In payment security, a token can replace sensitive payment information with a unique, randomly generated string. In financial infrastructure, tokenized money is being examined as a way to support transactions and settlement on programmable digital platforms.

The meeting places Korea’s domestic experimentation within a wider international discussion over the future of financial infrastructure. Cooperation between the Korean and British central banks gives both institutions an opportunity to compare technical and policy experience while global projects test whether tokenized systems can make cross-border transactions more efficient.

The Bank of Korea said it plans to actively share its experience from tokenization projects and participate in international discussions on the subject. The statement did not announce a launch date for a new service or a direct change for consumers. Instead, the talks centered on institutional cooperation and ongoing pilot programs.

For South Korea, the exchange highlights the growing international dimension of Project Hangang. It also shows that work on tokenized payments is moving beyond isolated national experiments toward coordination among central banks and multilateral institutions.