South Korea's Shinhan Financial Group has signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Visa to build stablecoin payment infrastructure while expanding into AI-powered payments and business transactions. According to reports from PANews and Yonhap News Agency, the partnership will initially focus on testing infrastructure needed to issue, transfer and redeem stablecoins using Visa's existing stablecoin technology, with both companies planning to design a model suited to South Korea's financial system. Shinhan Financial Group Chairman Jin Ok-dong stated that the group will extend its long-term cooperation with Visa to the entire digital finance sector and jointly design a new future financial model.
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. As reported by PANews, the initial work will cover the stablecoin lifecycle, including issuance, remittance and redemption, with the two companies using Visa's platform to verify those processes before developing services designed around local financial and regulatory requirements. The partnership will also explore stablecoin applications in financial services such as card payment settlement, AI payments, and the expansion of B2B and B2C payment businesses.
The stablecoin initiative comes after Shinhan Financial Group reported net income of ₹1.82 trillion won, or roughly $1.3 billion, for the latest quarter. According to PANews, Shinhan plans to bring several of its main subsidiaries into the work, including Shinhan Bank, Shinhan Card and Jeju Bank, with Visa contributing its international payment network and digital payment technology as the companies develop the projects.
The stablecoin partnership aligns with South Korea's broader digital payment transformation, where digital wallets are expected to capture 46% of e-commerce transaction value by 2030, surpassing credit cards which currently hold 49% of the market. As reported by Worldpay's Global Payments Report 2026, credit cards dominated South Korea's payment landscape in 2025 with 53% of POS spending, but digital wallets are forecast to reach 31% by 2030. The country's e-commerce payments market was valued at $180 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach $236 billion by 2030, representing a compound annual growth rate of 6%. South Korea's POS market is expected to grow more slowly from $313 billion to $344 billion over the same period, with a compound annual growth rate of 2%.
Shinhan and Visa are developing the new payment infrastructure while South Korean policymakers continue negotiations over rules governing locally issued stablecoins. According to crypto.news, 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. The Bank of Korea has maintained that banks should initially take the lead in won-backed stablecoin issuance, with the central bank proposing a statutory policy body to oversee the sector.
