Bank of Korea launches 24-hour won settlement pilot for foreign investors

The Bank of Korea has launched a pilot for a 24-hour won settlement network to enable foreign investors to process won transactions beyond South Korea’s customary banking hours. The central bank said the trial began with four domestic lenders — KB Kookmin Bank, Woori Bank, Hana Bank and Shinhan Bank — and is intended to let overseas participants settle during business hours in their home jurisdictions. Under the pilot, foreign investors can use accounts with Registered Foreign Institutions for KRW Business (RFI-Ks) to conduct won settlements without needing to open accounts directly with South Korean banks. The network will run around the clock on business days, with operations paused for weekends and public holidays. The BOK plans to expand the initiative when full operations commence in January 2027, at which point additional domestic institutions and foreign banks are expected to join. The central bank said it anticipates the network will bolster the won’s international role by improving access to settlement infrastructure for nonresident investors. The move is part of a wider set of experiments on modern settlement technology by the BOK. The central bank participated in Project Agorá, coordinated by the Bank for International Settlements, which conducted real-value cross-border payment trials in July using tokenized central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits including the won. Separately, the BOK is running Project Hangang, a blockchain-based pilot that applies a wholesale central bank digital currency to settle tokenized commercial bank deposits.