Today, Samsung Electronics and the Bank of Korea agreed to cooperate on offline central bank digital currency (CBDC) research. Offline functionality is seen by many central banks as essential for a CBDC. Offline CBDCs are seen as potentially offering greater privacy but there are question marks over the ability to use it for extended outages. The central bank is currently engaged in work with 14 financial institutions.
The company has developed an offline CBDC technology based on Near Field Communication (NFC), which enables transfers and payments between mobile phones when both sender and recipient are disconnected from the internet. Modern Samsung phones include embedded Secure Element (eSE) chips to support payments.
Lee Seung-heon, deputy governor of the Bank of Korea, said the partnership will help the country “to continue to lead the field of offline CBDC technology, which is being actively researched by global central banks.”
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