South Korea CBDC plan draws warning over privacy risks

South Korea’s People Power Party has opposed any central bank digital currency rollout without legal safeguards covering privacy, spending controls and consumer choice. Summary South Korea’s opposition People Power Party has opposed CBDC issuance without prior legal and institutional safeguards. Leader Jang Dong-hyeok questioned transaction tracking, spending controls, expiration limits and currency choice protections publicly. Project Hangang uses wholesale central-bank money beneath commercial banks’ tokenized customer deposits during trials nationwide. Phase two expands participating banks from seven to nine while adding peer-to-peer deposit-token transfer functions. Bank of Korea materials distinguish Project Hangang from a publicly issued retail CBDC system explicitly. Digital Asset reported on Sept. 14 that party leader Jang Dong-hyeok published the position on Facebook one day earlier. His statement arrived as the Bank of Korea advanced the second phase of Project Hangang, its digital-currency and tokenized-deposit testing program. “I strongly oppose the introduction of CBDC until legal and institutional safeguards are perfectly established so that the public can feel safe,”...