Jang Dong-hyuk, leader of the ruling People Power Party, said South Korea should not introduce a central bank digital currency (CBDC) before legal and institutional safeguards are fully established. In a Facebook post dated Sept. 14, he criticized the Bank of Korea’s Project Hangang pilot and questioned whether a CBDC could allow authorities to track transactions, restrict where or how long money can be used, or weaken citizens’ control over their finances. Earlier material identified the post as dated Sept. 13. Jang said South Korea’s existing financial and payment infrastructure made a rapid rollout unnecessary and compared its approach with the United States and Japan, which he said were not rushing to issue a retail CBDC. He identified China, Russia and India as countries pursuing large-scale pilots or phased mandates. Project Hangang is being developed by the Bank of Korea with the Financial Services Commission and Financial Supervisory Service, among other agencies. Unlike a retail CBDC issued directly to the public, it uses a wholesale CBDC framework in which banks issue deposit tokens for payments and other transactions. July changes approved by the Financial Services Commission will expand testing to 500,000 wallets from 100,000, add remittances and raise the per-wallet holding limit to 10 million won from 1 million won. The Bank of Korea has said neither it nor the government can identify or control participants’ deposit-token holdings.