South Korea’s central bank has partnered with tech giant Samsung Electronics to research central bank digital currency (CBDC) for offline payments.
According to local media KBS World, the Bank of Korea (BOK) and Samsung signed an MOU on May 15 to research offline CBDCs. As part of the collaboration, both parties will look into the offline functionality of the CBDC issued by the central bank.
Samsung participated in the second phase of the BOK’s 10-month CBDC simulation experiment research, which focused on the retail use of CBDCs. Additionally, the BOK conducted the preliminary stage of its CBDC research, which looked at fundamental processes like the issuance, distribution, and redemption of CBDC.
The latest MOU focuses on testing the potential of the South Korean CBDC to conduct remittances and payments using near-field communication (NFC) on Samsung mobile devices, rather than the Internet.
According to Won-Joon Choi, vice president of Samsung Electronics, the partnership allows the tech giant to use its advanced security technology in the field of digital currencies.
As part of the collaboration, Samsung has obtained hardware certification for the security international common criteria evaluation assurance level six grade, which comprises seven levels of security functional requirements.
Although Samsung is keenly interested in CBDCs, it recently imposed a ban on the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT on all Samsung-owned devices and internal networks by employees.
After a staff member uploaded a “sensitive code” to the platform, Samsung introduced the policy. Furthermore, banking giants like JPMorgan, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and Citigroup have also limited the use of generative AI tools.
