South Korea’s Eight Major Commercial Banks Plan to Form a Joint Venture to Issue a KRW Stablecoin

BlockBeats News, June 25 — According to Korea Economic Review, South Korea’s eight major commercial banks have joined forces to establish a won-based stablecoin joint venture, aiming to counter the US dollar’s dominance in the global stablecoin market and actively compete for leadership in the digital asset sector.

The participating institutions include KB Kookmin Bank, Shinhan Bank, Woori Bank, NongHyup Bank, IBK Industrial Bank, Suhyup Bank, Citibank Korea, and Standard Chartered First Bank. These eight banks are working with the Open Blockchain & DID Association and the Korea Financial Settlement Institute to prepare for the launch of a “KRW-pegged stablecoin” joint venture. This marks the first time the Korean banking industry has entered the digital asset business as an alliance, signaling a formal response from the private sector to the realities of digital assets.

Currently, the banks are discussing the construction of shared infrastructure. Once the relevant legal frameworks are in place, the joint venture could be established as early as the end of this year or the beginning of next year. The issuance model for the stablecoin has not yet been finalized, and two options are being evaluated from both technical and legal perspectives: 1) Trust-based model: customer funds are held in trust before tokens are issued; 2) Deposit token model: tokens are issued on a 1:1 basis with bank deposits.