The Bank of Korea has participated in a real transaction test for 'Project Agora,' led by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), confirming the operational feasibility of a tokenized cross-border payment system.
On July 30, the Bank of Korea announced that through this month's Real Value Testing (RVT) for Project Agora, it has verified that the platform's key functions and operational processes can run stably in an environment similar to actual operations.
Project Agora is a global initiative aimed at enhancing the efficiency of cross-border payments using tokenized central bank reserves and bank deposits.
The test involved 28 institutions, including central banks and private financial entities, and examined 17 transaction scenarios across six currencies, including the won, dollar, euro, and yen.
During the real transaction test, approximately 800,000 Swiss francs (CHF) were transacted. The results confirmed that the Agora prototype could successfully handle various cross-border payment scenarios, including single and dual currency payments between businesses and banks, simultaneous foreign exchange settlements (PvP), and fund transfers within the same financial group.
The test also demonstrated the benefits of tokenization and atomic settlement, which enhance transaction speed and transparency. Even in an environment where the Agora prototype was not fully integrated with existing real-time gross settlement systems (RTGS) and core banking systems, the average time from payment initiation to final settlement was about 1 minute and 20 seconds. Participating institutions positively evaluated the ability to track payment status and processing paths throughout the entire process, as well as the functionality to handle corporate payment transactions directly on the platform.
The Bank of Korea, along with NongHyup Bank and Shinhan Bank, conducted tests on interbank won transfer transactions (20 million won) using tokenized reserves. The Bank of Korea examined the process of issuing, transferring, and redeeming tokenized reserves on the Agora platform in response to payment instruction requests.
Looking ahead, Project Agora plans to identify additional transaction types and scenarios not covered in this test for further real transaction testing.
The Bank of Korea intends to actively participate in Project Agora while exploring various ways to ensure interoperability and linkage between the Han River platform and the Agora platform.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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