Bank of Korea Says "Hold My Won": Central Bank Doubles Down on Bank-Led Stablecoin Club 🪙

The Bank of Korea has reaffirmed that any won-denominated stablecoin should first be issued through bank-led consortiums, according to materials the central bank submitted Thursday to the National Assembly's finance committee. Local outlets Digital Asset and EDaily reported the submission, which also called for safeguards including priority issuance by bank-led consortiums and a statutory policy body involving relevant agencies.

The stance extends a months-long push by the BOK to keep won stablecoin issuance within bank-led structures, a position that has divided policymakers and industry groups and contributed to delays in South Korea's digital asset bill. Lawmakers have repeatedly deadlocked over who should be permitted to issue stablecoins, with the central bank insisting banks retain majority ownership of any issuer.

The BOK said it plans to continue developing deposit-token use cases in the second half of the year, covering government subsidy payments, vouchers, electric vehicle charging infrastructure and additional real-world transactions for the general public. Deposit tokens are digital representations of commercial bank deposits. In April, BOK Governor Hyun-Song Shin expressed support for deposit tokens and central bank digital currencies in his first public address, while South Korea's Ministry of Economy and Finance announced a pilot to use tokenized deposits for government operational spending.

The policy standoff has slowed progress on the Digital Asset Basic Act. The ruling Democratic Party proposed in April to place stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets under existing financial laws, leaving the bank-led issuance question unresolved. A government timeline that aimed to complete the bill by the first quarter of 2026 has slipped following the US-Israeli war with Iran that began in late February, local elections and delays in reorganizing the Assembly's committee structure.