Central bank to expand cooperation with Bank of England on tokenization

The Bank of Korea (BOK) said Tuesday it is expanding cooperation with the Bank of England (BoE) on tokenization projects.

Sarah Breeden, the BoE's deputy governor for financial stability, visited the BOK on Monday and exchanged views with BOK officials on innovations in payment and settlement, according to the BOK.

Breeden and other BoE officials shared updates on tokenization projects, including the global initiative Project Agora and Korea's Project Hangang, with their BOK counterparts.

The BOK said it will actively share its experience with tokenization projects and participate in global discussions on the matter.

Payment tokenization is a security process that replaces sensitive payment data with a unique, randomly generated string of characters called a token.

Project Agora, led by the Bank for International Settlements, explores how tokenized commercial bank deposits and tokenized wholesale central bank money can improve the global financial system, particularly cross-border payments.

Project Hangang is a blockchain-based tokenization pilot project led by the BOK to test digital currency and wholesale central bank digital currency.

Yonhap