South Korea’s National Pension Service to tap into blockchain

South Korea’s National Pension Service, the world’s third-largest public pension fund with over $800 billion in assets under management, is looking to tap into blockchain technology for transactions.

A report in the local Seoul Economic Daily states that the National Pension Service, whose assets stood at over 1,224 trillion Korean won, or about $836 billion, aims to explore the use of blockchain across its fund transactions to bolster transparency.

NPS, which previously said it had no immediate plans to buy cryptocurrencies but bet the shares of Bitcoin ( BTC ) buying company Strategy, is reportedly keen on the blockchain network’s underlying benefits. The fund manager also invested in the shares of crypto exchange behemoth Coinbase.

In addition to transparency, the public pension fund is targeting improved security. According to Seoul Economic Daily, the NPS will leverage blockchain to manage deposits, customer withdrawals, and investments.

The NPS will begin this initiative with initial disclosures and plans to seek input from top blockchain experts across the industry. A feedback phase will support a research study designed to assess the project’s feasibility.

Once this phase concludes, NPS will officially unveil the project, with successful integration bridging blockchain technology features to the leading South Korea public pension fund. According to the report, blockchain’s advantages will be key to nipping challenges related to tampering of the records it manages.

The NPS’s quest to tap into blockchain isn’t entirely a venture it’s considering for the first time. It has leveraged the features to track pension fund transactions of foreign-based clients. 

The NPS move comes amid a surge in the number of people investing in cryptocurrencies in the country. 

As crypto.news recently highlighted , crypto investors in South Korea have surpassed 16 million, having hit 14 million in March 2024 and more than 15 million following Donald Trump ’s victory in the U.S. election in November.