Bank of Korea Governor Hyun Song Shin Outlines Four‑Point Agenda Emphasizing Prudence, Stability and CBDC Expansion

Hyun Song Shin used his first speech as governor of the Bank of Korea on Tuesday to set out a four-part agenda for the central bank, signaling a cautious approach to monetary policy, tighter financial-stability monitoring and a stronger push to expand the won’s role in digital payments and cross-border settlement.

In his inaugural address in Seoul, Shin said the bank would respond to a highly uncertain global and domestic backdrop with what he called “prudence and flexibility” on rates and other policy tools, while also sharpening its surveillance of risks building outside the traditional banking system.

The address was Shin’s first substantive policy message since taking office on April 21, and it offered the clearest outline yet of how he plans to steer South Korea’s central bank over the next four years. “It is in this spirit that I would like to outline four priorities for the coming four years,” he said in the speech, the full text of which was published the same day by the Bank for International Settlements. The Bank of Korea also recorded the inauguration and posted the address on its website.

The first priority was monetary policy. Shin said the Bank of Korea would conduct policy with “prudence and flexibility” in an environment marked by unusual uncertainty. He also said the bank should reassess its policy instruments and improve communication, suggesting a broader review of how it signals decisions as conditions shift.

Second, Shin put financial stability at the center of the bank’s work. He said the central bank would strengthen monitoring by relying more on market-based early-warning indicators and by widening its analysis to cover non-bank financial institutions and the linkages that can transmit stress across markets.

His third priority focused on the won’s international use and on payments and settlement systems. Shin pointed to 24-hour foreign exchange operations and offshore won settlement as areas for development, alongside the bank’s digital-payments work. He specifically referenced Phase 2 of Project Hangang, the Bank of Korea’s initiative involving central bank digital currency, or CBDC, and tokenized deposits, as well as Project Agorá, a BIS-led cross-border tokenization effort.

The fourth priority was a broader research role for the central bank on South Korea’s structural economic problems. Shin said the Bank of Korea should use its analytical capacity to help address long-running challenges including demographics, household debt and real estate-related strains.

He framed that agenda against a list of risks that extended well beyond interest rates. Shin cited the recent conflict in the Middle East and its effects on oil prices and market volatility, as well as the technological shift driven by artificial intelligence, rising trade and geopolitical tensions, and Korea’s own domestic structural pressures. Taken together, the speech presented the central bank as an institution that should do more than calibrate borrowing costs, with a larger role in payments infrastructure, market oversight and economic research.

That emphasis also reflects Shin’s background. Before taking the top job in Seoul, he was a senior economics official at the BIS, the Switzerland-based institution that serves central banks. He is also a prominent economist with an academic career that included Princeton University, experience that helps explain the speech’s attention to international central-bank cooperation and market structure.

Shin’s appointment was approved by South Korea’s president on April 20 after the National Assembly adopted the confirmation report. He was inaugurated and formally began his term the following day. Opening the address, he said: “Today, I stand before you, having been appointed Governor of the Bank of Korea.”

He closed the speech’s payments agenda with one of its most concrete commitments: “Through the second phase of Project Hangang, we will expand the use of central bank digital currency (CBDC) and tokenized deposits, and through international cooperation, including Project Agorá, we will strengthen the role of the won in the digital payments environment.”