Shinhan Financial Group has signed a strategic memorandum of understanding with Visa to test stablecoin-based payment functions in South Korea, according to a report by The Block on Aug. 26. The planned work covers issuance, transfers, and redemptions, and will use Visa’s stablecoin platform to verify how those processes operate in practice. The agreement was signed at Shinhan Financial’s headquarters in Seoul. Beyond testing core stablecoin flows, the two companies also plan to design a business model tailored to South Korea’s domestic financial environment. The cooperation extends to integrating stablecoins into credit card payment settlements, exploring AI-based future payment models, and expanding both B2B and B2C payment services. Key details have not been disclosed. The report said the parties have not revealed which stablecoin will be used, how large the pilot will be, or when testing will begin. The move comes as South Korea broadens its digital asset push. The Ministry of Economy and Finance is planning to introduce a tokenization system in Sejong City in the fourth quarter of 2026, pointing to a wider effort by both public and private sector players to bring digital assets into the existing financial system.

Shinhan Financial Group of South Korea has signed a strategic partnership agreement with Visa, according to Yonhap News Agency. The cooperation will center on digital assets and future financial services, with Shinhan planning to use Visa’s stablecoin platform to test core functions tied to issuance, transfers, and redemptions. The group said the work will be carried out with South Korea’s domestic financial rules and market conditions in mind as the two sides shape a business model. The agreement also covers possible stablecoin use in financial services such as credit card bill settlement, along with AI-driven payment models and the expansion of both B2B and B2C payment businesses. The announcement outlines an operational testing and design effort rather than a public product launch.

Plume, a real-world asset blockchain, has signed a memorandum of understanding with South Korea’s Shinhan Asset Management to pilot a won-denominated tokenized fund, according to Techub News, citing CryptoBriefing. The planned fund will use short-term won bonds as its underlying assets and will be operated outside South Korea. Shinhan Asset Management is part of Shinhan Financial Group. The project marks another move by a South Korean financial institution into digital assets. The stated aim is to offer local investors an on-chain fixed-income product without taking on foreign-exchange risk. No further details on timeline, structure, or launch size were disclosed in the report.

South Korea’s five largest financial groups posted a combined net profit of KRW 13.12 trillion in the first half of 2026, up about 10% from a year earlier, as active trading in the country’s stock market lifted results. The groups named in the report were KB Financial, Shinhan Financial, Hana Financial, Woori Financial and NH Nonghyup Financial. KB Financial remained the top earner with KRW 3.88 trillion in net profit, followed by Shinhan Financial at KRW 3.44 trillion. According to the report, brokerage units were the biggest growth driver across the sector. NH Investment & Securities, KB Securities and Shinhan Investment posted first-half net profit growth of 107.5%, 135.0% and 123.1%, respectively, helping raise the contribution of non-banking businesses to overall group earnings. At the same time, several insurance subsidiaries faced pressure as loss ratios rose and insurance actuarial assumptions were adjusted. The major financial groups also said they would continue share buyback and cancellation plans in the second half of the year to improve shareholder returns. The report was cited by Asiae.

Cathie Wood said USDT and USDC remain the leading stablecoins in the roughly $308 billion market, supported by user scale, liquidity, and broad integrations that make them hard for new issuers to displace.

Open USD’s alliance roster is under scrutiny in South Korea after Samsung, Dunamu and other firms said they never entered formal agreements and were only asked whether they might review participation.

Open Standard said Open USD will launch in the coming months with more than 140 participating organizations, but several Korean companies later said they had not formally joined the project.

Developments across crypto, regulation, trading infrastructure, and adjacent tech sectors piled up between July 21 and July 22. Jito Labs rolled out JTX, a self-custodial trading venue on Solana for spot trading in ecosystem tokens and tokenized real-world assets. Telegram founder Pavel Durov said the company plans to ship a native non-custodial Gram wallet inside every Telegram client this summer, a move he described as a wallet deployment for more than 1 billion users. In regulation, Russia’s State Duma passed its first comprehensive crypto law, while Pakistan’s FIA set up a virtual asset investigation unit focused on money laundering and terrorist financing. In the U.S., Coinbase published a postmortem on its July 14 outage, saying a Kubernetes resource naming conflict disrupted transfers, card payments, and on-chain services but did not put customer funds at risk. The broader news cycle also included ETF flow data, legal action over an Illinois digital asset tax, new trading products from Arcus and Kalshi, additional financing for Digital Asset, and a Chapter 11 filing by Movement Labs.