The Bank of Korea has begun trial operations for its first settlement network designed to process won transactions around the clock on business days, extending access beyond South Korea’s normal banking hours.
The central bank said the pilot started at 9 a.m. Korea Standard Time on Sept. 21 with four domestic participants: KB Kookmin Bank, Woori Bank, Hana Bank and Shinhan Bank. Full operation is planned for January 2027, although the exact institutions and timing for adding foreign banks remain undecided.
The network will operate 24 hours a day except on weekends and public holidays. It is intended to let foreign investors settle won transactions during business hours in their home markets through accounts at Registered Foreign Institutions for KRW Business, known as RFI-Ks, rather than requiring them to open accounts directly with South Korean financial institutions.
Longer availability targets a cross-border timing problem
For overseas investors and their service providers, access to a currency’s settlement infrastructure can be constrained by the operating day in the currency’s home market. A longer window does not eliminate every cross-border settlement risk, but it gives institutions more opportunity to complete the won leg of a transaction while their own operations teams and markets are open.
The pilot therefore changes availability before it changes the underlying asset. The Bank of Korea’s release describes a central-bank-operated international won settlement network; it does not say that the system uses a blockchain, stablecoin, tokenized deposit or central bank digital currency. That distinction is important for digital-asset and payments firms assessing how conventional infrastructure may compete with or complement tokenized settlement systems.
Extended operating hours can reduce dependence on narrow timing overlaps, but 24-hour availability should not be read as proof of instant or continuous settlement. The network excludes weekends and public holidays, and the central bank has not disclosed transaction speed, pricing, liquidity arrangements, volume capacity or technical integration details in the public release.
The pilot begins with a deliberately limited group
Starting with four large domestic banks gives the Bank of Korea a controlled environment in which to monitor operations before widening participation. The central bank said it will conduct continuous monitoring and improve the system and its operating framework as it prepares for the broader launch.
Foreign-bank participation is a plan rather than a completed expansion. The Bank of Korea specifically noted that the institutions and timetable are not yet fixed. Payment providers should therefore separate the network’s current state—a four-bank pilot—from its intended January configuration.
The central bank framed the project as an effort to improve foreign investors’ access to won settlement infrastructure and support the currency’s international use. For payments and digital-asset businesses, the more immediate significance is operational: central banks are extending traditional settlement availability while tokenized-money projects pursue similar goals through different architectures.
Whether the new network delivers measurable reductions in delays, liquidity costs or settlement failures will depend on results that have not yet been published. The pilot establishes a live operating phase and a target for full service, but it does not yet provide evidence of those outcomes.