Blockchain infrastructure company Chainlink has joined forces with a coalition of European and South Korean banks to enable real-time, stablecoin-based cross-border payments for foreign-exchange trades within a year. According to reports from Chainlink, the alliance, called Project Pangea, includes Qivalis, a euro stablecoin consortium backed by 37 European banks, and UniKA, a Korean banking alliance representing more than 10 commercial banks. The coalition collectively represents over $10 trillion in assets under management and aims to redefine global FX markets by moving foreign-exchange settlement from a traditional 48-hour (T+2) timeline toward near-instant (T+0) settlement. As per Chainlink's latest announcement, the group now includes more than 50 banks with over $10 trillion in assets under management.
The project will test near-instant settlement of euro- and South Korean won-pegged stablecoins using atomic payment-versus-payment (PvP) mechanisms, as reported by Chainlink. These stablecoins are crypto tokens whose value is tied 1:1 to the underlying currency. The initiative will evaluate whether stablecoins can be exchanged through atomic PvP settlement, in which both sides of a currency trade settle simultaneously or not at all, thereby reducing counterparty and settlement risk. Project Pangea is designed as middleware that lets banks use existing Swift and ISO 20022 systems while settling on the Pangea L1 blockchain network. According to Chainlink's latest announcement, the settlement layer would use Pangea AMM smart contracts on chains such as Ethereum, Polygon and Pangea L1.
The project employs a sophisticated three-tiered network architecture to handle different aspects of the cross-border settlement process. SWIFT will handle the banking layer for financial messaging between partner banks, while Chainlink provides secure transfer of Euro stablecoins to Korean won settlement chains and real-time data feeds on global FX rates for on-chain systems. The Pangea L1 blockchain, built by FairSquareLab, handles the settlement layer, with the developer being part of the UniKA (Unified Korea Alliance), which includes Korea's banking giants like JB Bank and Kbank. This architecture allows traditional banking systems to integrate seamlessly with blockchain technology while maintaining regulatory compliance.
The initiative is focusing on the $150 billion trade corridor between Europe and South Korea, an economic artery that processes over $150 billion in goods and services annually, making it one of the world's 15 largest trade routes. According to Chainlink's Niki Ariyasinghe, the project goes beyond a tech experiment, with the target being live transactions within a legal, regulatory compliance framework within the next 12 months. The project aims to reduce settlement times from days to near real time, allowing participating institutions to lower liquidity costs, reduce settlement risk and give businesses faster access to funds tied up in cross-border transactions. As reported by Chainlink, Ariyasinghe noted that "This is not just a POC. Everyone's coming in with their eyes wide open."
The project represents a significant shift in how traditional foreign exchange markets operate, with Fernando Vazquez, president of capital markets at Chainlink Labs, describing it as "a major milestone toward rebuilding how global value moves. Project Pangea upgrades the fragmented foreign exchange model of today with direct, atomic currency swaps using stablecoins." For Korea specifically, Joonhong Kim, CEO of FairSquareLab, emphasized that "Project Pangea is more than an efficiency gain — it opens a path for the Korean won to connect more directly with global currency markets, reducing reliance on intermediary currencies." Currently, traders must convert Euros to the US dollar before accessing Korean won, but on-chain FX eliminates these hidden costs and middlemen. The initiative leverages the fact that 60% of all global stablecoin payments are happening in Asia, indicating strong regional demand for tokenized payment solutions.
