Korea set February 4, 2027 for tokenized bonds and funds

Korea just published the first national plan to retire T+2. Then it handed the build to the depository that runs T+2 today.

The Financial Services Commission released the roadmap on September 4, 2026. It came out of the third public-private meeting on tokenized securities.

The venue tells you something. They met at the Korea Securities Depository in Seoul.

Three phases, one fixed date. Phase one starts on February 4, 2027.

That is when amendments to the Electronic Registration Act take effect. Tokenized securities get legal recognition as a digital form of a security.

Phase one is deliberately narrow. Privately placed money market funds and bonds for institutional investors.

Unlisted stocks qualify too, through a trust structure. So do publicly offered fractional investment products.

Phase two widens it to all publicly offered securities. Phase three builds on-chain payment rails linked to stablecoins.

Neither later phase has a date. Both depend on phase one results, market adoption, and stablecoin legislation Korea has not passed.

Now the licensing design. There is no new license.

Existing brokerages can handle tokenized securities under what they already hold. Issuers running their own accounts need about $3 million in equity.

Technology and security standards apply too. OTC platforms must consult the Financial Supervisory Service first.

Retail limits are tight. An individual subscription is capped at the lower of two numbers.

Thirty million won, about $22,000, or 5% of the issue. Annual net OTC purchases are capped near $74,000.

Vice Chairman Kwon Dae-young led the announcement. Draft subordinate rules land by the end of September.

Phase three is the only part that moves real money. Everything before it is a wrapper change.

Here is the mechanism. Shares settle two days after the trade because cash and securities live in separate systems.

Someone has to match them, and matching takes time. That gap is where securities lending, fails management, and settlement financing all live.

Put the cash leg and the security leg on one ledger and the gap closes. The float inside T+2 stops existing.

That is a real fee pool. It funds a large part of what prime brokers and depositories do.

Now read who is building it. The Korea Securities Depository.

The central depository is not being routed around. It is being re-platformed, with the same institution in the middle.

That is the pattern worth noticing. Korea legalized the technology and kept the intermediary.

DTCC is running the same play in the US. The SEC's own proposal targets issuance, not settlement.

No model appears anywhere in this roadmap. But settlement on one ledger is the precondition for machine-run treasury, and Korea just scheduled it.

Crossover moves is the metric, and this is a sovereign entry rather than a corporate one. A national market plan outranks a bank pilot.

Tokenized asset AUM gets a forward marker too. Boston Consulting Group projects the Korean market near ₩367 trillion by 2030, roughly $250 billion.

Compare that to today's global base. On-chain asset value sits above $38 billion worldwide.

One country's 2030 projection is six times the current world total. Treat projections as ambition, not data.

Watch the end of September. That is when the FSC publishes draft subordinate rules.

The real terms appear there, not in the roadmap. Capital thresholds and custody rules decide who can actually play.

Watch the stablecoin bill harder. Phase three cannot start without it, and Korea has not passed it.

Watch the won question too. A won-denominated settlement token is the missing piece, and nobody has issued one at scale.

Territory: +machines on settlement design, +incumbents on the seat.

The float inside Korea's two-day settlement cycle is scheduled to disappear, while the depository keeps the mandate.