- Eight of South Korea’s leading banks are planning to issue a Won-backed stablecoin.
- The largest bank in the country has already applied for stablecoin trademarks.
The global stablecoin race is on, and South Korea is keen on catching up with the U.S. and leading the Asian region.
According to an Economic Review report, eight South Korean banks have teamed up to issue a stablecoin pegged to the local currency, the Korean Won (KRW).
The banking consortium includes KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Woori, NongHyup, Suhyup, Citibank Korea, Standard Chartered Korea, and Industrial Bank of Korea.
Of these, four are among the nation’s five largest banks, a clear signal that this was no trial balloon.
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Naturally, the banks weren’t acting alone.
They partnered with the Open Blockchain and Decentralized Identifier Association (OBDIA) and the Korea Financial Telecommunication and Clearings Institute (KFTC).
The latter is the backbone of South Korea’s interbank payments system.
This suggested that the project was considering international payment and remittance via Won-backed stablecoins, currently dominated by Circle’s USDC and Tether’s USDT.
In fact, one of the banking officials said,
“There is a shared sense of crisis that if things continue this way, foreign dollar coins could dominate the domestic market.”
The official went on and added,
“It is time to secure both the independence and competitiveness of the domestic financial system through a won-based digital currency.”
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Meanwhile, the underlying regulatory scaffolding was still taking shape. The banks’ infrastructure was under review and expected to be finalized by the end of 2025 or early 2026.
Having said that, the legal direction was already clear. South Korea’s Digital Asset Basic Act (DABA) was the legislative green light.
In fact, the banks were exploring both trust-based issuance and deposit-token models, aligning with DABA’s framework for stablecoin authorization.
Worth pointing out, however, that the stablecoin bill was introduced under the new pro-crypto President Lee Jae-myung. The stablecoin use case is the main difference between DABA and the U.S. GENIUS bill.
While DABA aims to protect financial sovereignty, aid remittance, and curb U.S. dollar dominance, the GENIUS Act seeks to maintain the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.
Trademark now, launch later
On top of that, trademark wars had already begun.
The country’s largest bank, Kookmin, had already applied for 17 stablecoin trademarks as of press time. Another payment provider, Kakao Pay, made a similar application recently, prompting the bank’s move.
Notably, KakaoBank, another affiliate, filed 12 trademarks just days earlier, including names like BKRW and KRWB, as revealed in a Korea Times report.
A KB Kookmin official acknowledged the move as preparation for the joint banking collaboration and said,
“We registered the trademarks as a priority in order to dominate the trademark rights…The banking sector is forming a joint council, so we are preparing preemptively in line with that.”
