Bank of Korea Governor Showcases Digital 'Unified Ledger' Work at ECB Forum

Bank of Korea Governor Shin Hyun Song has showcased South Korea's push into next-generation financial infrastructure, presenting a paper on a digital 'unified ledger' at the European Central Bank's annual central banking forum. The paper, titled 'A unified ledger in practice: lessons from Project Hangang', drew on the central bank's experiments with tokenised money and settlement, part of a broader international effort to explore how central bank money, commercial bank deposits and other assets might interact on shared programmable platforms. A unified ledger concept envisions bringing tokenised forms of money and assets together in a common venue to enable faster, cheaper and more integrated transactions, while preserving the central role of central bank money. The presentation underscores South Korea's ambition to remain at the frontier of payments innovation, at a time when the country is also debating a framework for won-denominated stablecoins. It reflects growing collaboration among central banks on digital money and tokenisation, as authorities weigh the potential efficiency gains against risks to financial stability, monetary control and consumer protection. Findings from such projects are expected to inform future policy design.