[Edaily Reporter Jang Young-eun ] The Bank of Korea has established a new “Asset Tokenization Team” under its Digital Currency Division as part of an organizational restructuring. This move elevates tokenization experiments to an actual institutional and operational level, signaling that the bank has begun in earnest to design the financial infrastructure of the future.

According to the Bank of Korea on the 5th, the Asset Tokenization Team was newly established under the Digital Currency Division as part of an organizational restructuring carried out last week alongside the regular second-half personnel reshuffle. This unit is dedicated to conducting a pilot project on the tokenization of government bonds in conjunction with the central bank digital currency (CBDC) infrastructure included in the second-half economic growth strategy.

Until now, the Bank of Korea has been conducting experiments through “Project Hangang” to digitize the money we use in our daily lives—central bank money and deposits—into deposit tokens. It has now established a dedicated organization to move to the next stage: the full-scale conversion of assets, particularly government bonds—the nation’s most important assets—into digital form.

The Asset Tokenization Team represents not merely research but the first step toward implementing a “unified ledger” strategy, in which deposit tokens, central bank money, and asset tokens operate together on a single platform. It is also the final piece of the so-called “Trilogy”—a blueprint for the future of finance that BOK Governor Shin Hyun-song has emphasized since his time at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

A unified ledger is a structure that uses central bank money as the benchmark to manage deposit tokens and asset tokens on the same ledger. It enhances settlement efficiency by processing remittances, clearing, and settlement all at once, rather than separating them, and enables functions such as conditional payments and automatic collateral settlement. In effect, it allows all operations—which were previously handled separately by banks, securities firms, the Korea Securities Depository, and the Bank of Korea—to be managed through a single integrated platform.

Once this technology is fully developed, subsidies for electric vehicle charging or civil servants’ operational expenses can be disbursed as tokenized deposits and programmed to be spent only for predetermined purposes and at specific locations. Furthermore, “atomic payments”—where assets are transferred instantly at the same time money is sent—will become possible, thereby eliminating at the source the risk of settlement failures that can occur when money is transferred first but assets follow later.

A Bank of Korea official stated, “Advanced economies such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan have either entered the commercialization phase of converting government bonds into digital form or have completed the design process,” adding, “We have also been conducting internal experiments, and the establishment of the Asset Tokenization Division is the first step to ensure our financial sector does not fall behind in global competition.”

The official continued, “As we enter the era of artificial intelligence (AI), we will inevitably have to move in the broader direction of asset tokenization,” adding, “Although the related unit is starting as a ‘division’ (smaller than a team), it is expected to gradually expand to reflect its importance.”

Another notable aspect of this organizational restructuring is that the North Korean Economy Research Office, formerly under the Economic Research Institute, has been renamed the Economic Security Office. This appears to be a strategic move to strengthen research on economic security in line with the growing importance of geoeconomics, as countries increasingly weaponize trade controls, resources, and energy. Geoeconomics is a portmanteau of “geo” and “economics.” It refers to the strategies by which nations utilize economic means—such as trade, resources, finance, and technology—to achieve diplomatic, security, and political objectives, as well as the academic discipline that studies these strategies.

The fact that the first organizational restructuring carried out since Governor Shin took office set a course toward prioritizing the design of future financial systems and economic security is interpreted as the Bank of Korea laying the groundwork to lead related discussions in the international community going forward.

This move is also consistent with the recent establishment, under Governor Shin’s leadership, of a director-general-level strategic committee to address BIS agendas. The Bank of Korea created this director-general-level consultative body to share discussions and annual agendas from various BIS committees at the bank level and to coordinate response strategies; the committee held its first meeting last week. The development of future financial systems, including the tokenization of deposits and government bonds, is considered a key agenda item to be discussed at the BIS level in the future.