Shinhan Financial taps Visa for stablecoin payments and settlement push

South Korea’s Shinhan Financial Group has signed a strategic agreement with Visa to build stablecoin payment infrastructure while expanding its work into AI-powered payments and business transactions.

Shinhan Financial Group said Wednesday that the partnership will initially focus on testing the infrastructure needed to issue, transfer and redeem stablecoins using Visa’s existing stablecoin technology, with the two companies also planning to design a model suited to South Korea’s financial system.

Shinhan Visa stablecoin partnership puts infrastructure first

Under the agreement, Shinhan and Visa will examine how stablecoins can be integrated into financial services operated by the Korean group, moving beyond isolated blockchain trials toward payment infrastructure that could work across several businesses.

The initial work will cover the stablecoin lifecycle, including issuance, remittance and redemption. Shinhan said the two companies will use Visa’s platform to verify those processes before developing services designed around local financial and regulatory requirements.

Payment settlement is another part of the planned work. Shinhan and Visa intend to incorporate stablecoins into joint pilot projects for card settlement while also studying AI-based payment models and new services for both business and consumer transactions.

Shinhan Financial Group Chairman Jin Ok-dong said the agreement expands the group’s existing relationship with Visa into digital finance.

“Through this agreement, we have expanded our long-standing partnership with Visa to the broader digital finance sector,” Jin said.

Shinhan plans to bring several of its main subsidiaries into the work, including Shinhan Bank, Shinhan Card and Jeju Bank. Visa will contribute its international payment network and digital payment technology as the companies develop the projects.

Jin said Shinhan’s financial capabilities and Visa’s infrastructure would be used to jointly design new financial models and provide new services to customers.

The project adds another stablecoin initiative to Shinhan’s digital asset work after the financial group reported net income of 1.82 trillion won, or roughly $1.3 billion, for the latest quarter.

Shinhan has already tested stablecoin payments on Solana

Several parts of the Visa agreement build on payment experiments already being carried out by Shinhan subsidiaries.

In April, Shinhan Card partnered with the Solana Foundation to develop and test stablecoin payments using the Solana blockchain, as previously reported by crypto.news. The proof-of-concept uses Solana’s testnet to simulate transactions between customers and merchants under real-world payment scenarios.

Shinhan Card said at the time that the test would evaluate transaction performance as well as the security and stability of non-custodial wallets. The company was also studying a hybrid financial structure connecting conventional payment systems with decentralized finance tools.

Oracle technology formed another part of that experiment, with Shinhan Card planning to use external transaction data for smart contract execution while maintaining monitoring and governance controls.

The April trial also placed Shinhan among nine Korean banks participating in a government program to test tokenized bank deposits for public spending. South Korea’s Ministry of Economy and Finance plans to introduce the system in Sejong City during the fourth quarter of 2026, replacing government-issued payment cards for some operational expenses.

Shinhan has since extended its work beyond payment infrastructure. Earlier in August, Shinhan’s asset management arm signed a four-party memorandum of understanding with the Solana Foundation, Etherfuse and decentralized exchange Orca to test the issuance and distribution of a Korean won-denominated tokenized fund.

The project adds tokenized investment products to the group’s blockchain activity at a time when several Shinhan businesses are separately testing payments, settlement and digital asset infrastructure.

Tokenized finance has become another focus for Shinhan

Institutional blockchain networks have also become part of Shinhan’s strategy.

During June, Shinhan Asset Management and Shinhan Investment & Securities signed separate agreements with the Canton Foundation to study tokenized financial products, South Korean digital asset rules and ways to provide Korean assets to international investors through Canton Network.

Canton is a public-permissioned blockchain designed for regulated financial institutions, with infrastructure for tokenized assets, settlement and financial transactions that require privacy and compliance controls.

Shinhan Asset Management CEO Lee Seok-won said the cooperation could provide a route for the company’s financial products to reach international investors while complying with domestic regulations. Shinhan Investment & Securities separately planned to examine how Korean digital financial products could use Canton’s institutional network.

The relationship moved into investment the following month. Shinhan Financial Group and Standard Chartered’s SC Ventures joined Digital Asset’s funding round in July, adding $10 million and taking the total financing to $365 million. Digital Asset is the company behind Canton Network.

The investment followed Shinhan’s agreements with the Canton Foundation and added an equity component to the financial group’s work with institutional blockchain infrastructure.

Visa has also worked with Canton separately, having tested stablecoin settlement on the network with Brale’s SBC stablecoin. The pilot examined whether financial institutions could conduct blockchain-based settlements while keeping sensitive payment and settlement information private.

South Korea is still working through stablecoin rules

Shinhan and Visa are developing the new payment infrastructure while South Korean policymakers continue negotiations over the rules that would govern locally issued stablecoins.

The country’s proposed Digital Asset Basic Act is expected to establish rules for stablecoins, digital asset service providers, disclosures, internal controls and crypto businesses. Government plans announced in July also called for a legal framework covering cross-border stablecoin transactions and amendments that could allow spot cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds.

A central issue remains the structure of Korean won-backed stablecoin issuance. The Bank of Korea has maintained that banks should initially take the lead, with the central bank supporting consortium structures in which regulated financial institutions play the main role.

In July, the Bank of Korea reaffirmed its position in material submitted to the National Assembly’s finance committee, arguing that bank-led consortiums should receive priority in the first stage of won-denominated stablecoin issuance.

The central bank also proposed a statutory policy body bringing together financial regulators and government agencies to oversee the sector. Discussions have continued as policymakers work through disagreements over issuer eligibility, reserve oversight and regulatory authority.

A separate policy report released July 29 by Hashed Open Research and the Solana Policy Institute called for interim stablecoin licensing guidance while lawmakers continue work on the Digital Asset Basic Act. The report summarized discussions around a possible compromise in which banks could retain majority ownership of an issuing consortium while fintech companies handle parts of its management.

The Financial Services Commission told the National Assembly in July that it was working with the ruling Democratic Party on a consolidated version of the Digital Asset Basic Act, potentially combining 10 pending digital asset proposals into a government-backed framework during 2026.

Shinhan Bank is also participating in the Bank of Korea’s work on tokenized money. During the latest phase of the Bank for International Settlements’ Project Agora, Shinhan Bank and NongHyup Bank took part in a domestic test involving the transfer of 20 million won in tokenized central bank reserves, with the Bank of Korea issuing, transferring, and redeeming the funds on the project’s platform.