Tech Giants Kakao, SK And Naver All Want To Test South Korean CBDCs

Tech giants Kakao, SK, and Naver are all considering testing South Korean CBDCs and pilot the forthcoming digital won so let’s read more in our latest cryptocurrency news today.

Some of the biggest tech giants of south Korea Kakao, SK, and Naver are joining in on the central bank digital currency race. According to KBS and Chosun, the bidding process became a three-way battle between a chat app operator and chat app service like Naver and Kakako along with heavyweight SK. The BOK closed the bidding with consortiums or solo bids led by Kakao’s blockchain subsidiary Ground X, the Naver affiliate Line Plus and the SK arm vying for approval by the Bank of Korea.

Chosun added that LG CNS, the IT services branch of LG is also a member of Line Plus consortium. Samsungs’s own IT services SDS dropped out of the bidding process. Both LG and Kakako created a digital won compatible platform to seem keen on making digital currency-related business. The BOK is set to announce a decision on which of the bids to accept before the end of the month and the winning company will conduct a 10-month pilot starting in August. The BOK wants operators to test its central bank digital currencies in areas like cross-border remittance, offline payments, and bank deposits but also e-commerce payments. The pilot will be divided into two stages. The first will check the functionality of the prototype digital KRW while the second will address privacy issues. The pilot will wrap up in June 2022 and it has been allocated with a budget of $4.3 million.

Speaking of South Korea, One of the biggest financial institutions, South Korean Woori Financial Group will start offering crypto custody services to its clients and its banking unit will lunch the initiative in a partnership with the fintech solutions provider Coinplug Inc. According to a report from the Korean Economic Daily, Woori Bank will be the next Korean bank to enter the DACS market and the institution teamed up with the BTC-focused fintech solutions provider Coinplug to set up a custody joint venture. The project dubbed named D-Custody will be incorporated by next week and Coinplug will be the main shareholder while the bank will have less input.