Upbit operator Dunamu has entered into a strategic partnership with Visa.

The two companies plan to develop stablecoin-based payments, cross-border remittances and AI-driven financial services.

What Dunamu plans to build with Visa

The partnership was unveiled at Visa’s Global Market Support Center in San Francisco.

The plan combines Dunamu’s digital asset technology, including custody, transfers and anti-money-laundering tools developed through Upbit, with Visa’s global payments network. The companies said they will explore international payments, remittances and settlement services running on stablecoins, along with AI-powered finance.

They also plan to examine agentic commerce, a model in which an AI agent searches for a product or service and completes the purchase and payment on the user’s behalf.

Both firms said they will review business models built on OUSD, the dollar-backed stablecoin from the Open Standard consortium. The consortium includes Visa, Mastercard, BlackRock, Circle and more than 140 other institutions, but OUSD has not launched yet.

OUSD differs from Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC, which are operated by single companies. It is designed as shared infrastructure governed independently. Most of OUSD’s reserve income is returned to the banks, card firms and exchanges that distribute it, and it has no issuance or redemption fees.

A Dunamu spokesperson reportedly said OUSD is one of several stablecoins under review by the company and that it is “not prioritizing nor excluding specific stablecoins.”

Dunamu was previously listed as one of several Korean consortium partners, but later said there was no formal agreement to join. That distinction matters as South Korean payment and digital asset firms position themselves for a market that is still waiting on clearer rules for stablecoins and related services.

Visa’s broader push into South Korea’s stablecoin market

Cryptopolitan reported that Shinhan Financial Group signed its own strategic agreement with Visa on August 24 to test stablecoin issuance, remittance and redemption. That deal is Shinhan’s second stablecoin partnership in four months.

Visa also joined BLOOM, an initiative backed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore that connects traditional payment systems to regulated stablecoin rails. J.P. Morgan, DBS and Circle were among the participants.

Visa said it has an annualized settlement volume of $7 billion as of April, and it already operates stablecoin pilots across nine blockchains and more than 130 stablecoin-linked card programs in about 40 countries.

The launch of either product depends on South Korea passing legislation governing digital assets. Cryptopolitan has reported that the Digital Asset Basic Act is still under review by the National Assembly.

The law may allow only groups in which commercial banks own at least 51% to issue won-backed stablecoins, following warnings from the Bank of Korea about allowing non-bank companies to issue stablecoins.

Before the Visa deal, Hana Financial Group took a 6.55% stake in May to jointly build a won-stablecoin ecosystem. Samsung affiliates also bought a combined 4% stake in the company before its July talks on stablecoin and AI payments.

Dunamu also operates its own public blockchain, Giwa.

The countries targeted for the financial services under discussion, as well as the service formats and launch timeline, have not been set.