Shinhan Card has partnered with SBI VC Trade and SBI XDC Network APAC to explore yen-denominated stablecoin payments between Japan and South Korea. The agreement will test card-linked merchant payments, wallet-to-wallet transfers and cross-border trade settlement, connecting digital assets with existing payment infrastructure without yet committing to a commercial launch.
According to SBI’s official October 21 announcement, the companies signed the memorandum of understanding at SBI Group headquarters in Tokyo on October 20. The partnership remains at the proof-of-concept stage, with the participants planning to assess user experience, transaction processes, operational structures and the commercial viability of stablecoin-based payment models.
The initiative targets practical payment scenarios, including the possibility of Japanese travelers using yen-denominated digital assets through familiar merchant-payment interfaces in South Korea. The companies will also evaluate anti-money laundering and fraud-detection controls, making compliance and payment safety part of the technical tests rather than treating stablecoin settlement as a purely infrastructure problem.
Stablecoin Payments Meet Existing Card Infrastructure
Shinhan Card brings an established consumer and merchant payments network, while SBI VC Trade provides regulated digital-asset infrastructure in Japan. SBI XDC Network APAC, a joint venture involving SBI Holdings and TradeFinex Tech, focuses on blockchain infrastructure for enterprise and trade-finance applications. The combination gives the pilot access to both conventional payment distribution and blockchain-based settlement expertise.
The partners will also examine wallet-to-wallet payments and cross-border commercial settlement. However, the announcement does not confirm that transactions will use payment-versus-payment settlement, distributed netting or a direct yen-won atomic swap mechanism, features associated with SBI’s separate Project Musubi initiative rather than this Shinhan Card agreement.
SBI XDC Network APAC and Shinhan Card will additionally explore participation in the XDC Network node ecosystem. That does not mean the payment pilot has already selected XDC as its production settlement network, since the parties describe node participation and infrastructure cooperation as areas for further evaluation.
The initiative fits a broader regional push to integrate stablecoins with conventional payment rails. Visa and Dunamu are separately exploring stablecoin payments and cross-border remittances in South Korea, while Kakao Pay and KakaoBank have begun testing stablecoin infrastructure with Fireblocks. These projects remain infrastructure and commercialization experiments rather than evidence of mass stablecoin payment adoption.
Regulation Still Shapes the Japan-Korea Corridor
Japan already operates a regulated framework for electronic payment instruments, and SBI has been building yen-denominated stablecoin infrastructure through initiatives such as JPYSC with Startale. The Shinhan agreement has not confirmed that JPYSC will be the stablecoin used in the new tests, making it important to separate SBI’s existing products from the specific assets selected for this PoC.
South Korea remains at an earlier regulatory stage. The country’s second-phase digital asset legislation is still being developed, with policymakers debating rules for stablecoin issuance, reserves and issuer eligibility. A bank-centered issuance model remains under discussion rather than representing a fully implemented stablecoin regime, limiting how quickly experimental payment infrastructure can move into broad commercial deployment.
That regulatory gap makes the pilot primarily a test of interoperability, compliance and payment economics. Commercial adoption will depend on whether the partners can demonstrate lower friction without sacrificing AML controls, fraud prevention or integration with existing merchant systems, rather than simply proving that stablecoin transfers are technically possible.
The agreement therefore represents another step toward connecting digital money with mainstream Asian payment infrastructure, but not a finished Japan-Korea settlement network. The next meaningful evidence will be the design and results of the planned PoCs, including which stablecoin and blockchain infrastructure are actually used and whether the model produces measurable improvements over existing payment rails.
