Tech giant Samsung Electronics has reportedly partnered with South Korea’s central bank to conduct research on central bank digital currency (CBDC) for offline payments.
On May 15, the Bank of Korea (BOK) and Samsung signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for research on offline CBDCs, according to local media KBS World. The collaboration will have both parties researching the offline capabilities of the CBDC issued by the central bank.
Samsung also participated in the second phase of the BOK’s 10-month CBDC simulation experiment research, which concerned the retail use of CBDCs. The first stage of the BOK’s CBDC research tested basic functions such as CBDC’s issuance, distribution and redemption.
The latest MOU is aimed at testing the South Korean CBDC’s potential to conduct remittances and payments using near-field communication (NFC) on Samsung mobile devices instead of the internet. Samsung Electronics vice president Won-Joon Choi revealed that the collaboration allowed the tech giant to apply Samsung’s high-level security technology to the digital currency field.
As part of the collaboration, Samsung has reportedly obtained hardware certification for the security international common criteria evaluation assurance level six grade, which includes seven levels of security functional requirements.
Despite keen interest in CBDCs, Samsung recently banned employees from using generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools like ChatGPT on all Samsung-owned devices and internal networks.
