Ripple has expanded its footprint in South Korea through a new partnership with Jeonbuk Bank, bringing blockchain-based cross-border payments to the bank's business customers. The agreement adds another major financial institution to Ripple's growing Korean network and is the company's third collaboration with a Korean financial institution announced this year.

Jeonbuk Bank — headquartered in Jeonju, in Korea's North Jeolla Province — is the first regional bank in the country to deploy Ripple Payments, replacing multi-day SWIFT transfers with near real-time, 24/7 cross-border settlement for its business customers.

Our third Korean partnership this year, after Kyobo Life Insurance and Kbank, partnering…

— Ripple (@Ripple), August 18, 2026

Jeonbuk Bank Brings Faster Cross-Border Payments

Cross-border remittances using Ripple Payments will enable cross-border businesses to complete settlement in seconds to minutes — a process that can take days with traditional banking methods.

The traditional counterparty banking system and the SWIFT network typically involve several processing stages from vendor to receivables, with cut-off times and time-zone differences between intermediary banks stretching settlement windows. Ripple Payments is designed to simplify that process and runs around the clock.

The service is aimed at companies that make regular international business payments, such as import-export businesses, IT startups, and online content creators.

The rollout also marks an extension of Jeonbuk Bank's traditional banking business into a multifaceted approach. Bank President Park Choon-won said the partnership aims to support the bank's digitalization of finance and provide a fresh growth avenue.

Ripple Expands Its Korean Institutional Network

In 2026, Jeonbuk Bank became Ripple's third major Korean financial cooperation announcement, following Kyobo Life Insurance and Kbank. The pace of deals comes as South Korea, one of the world's largest export economies, advances digital asset legislation aimed at giving banks and insurers clearer rules for offering blockchain-based services.

Kyobo Life Insurance, South Korea's biggest life insurance provider, is collaborating with Ripple on the on-chain settlement of government bonds. Kbank, meanwhile, will use Ripple Custody to roll out its institutional wallet infrastructure.

Combined, the engagements span several layers of the digital asset infrastructure ladder, from payments and custody to tokenized financial assets.

Ripple Targets Korea's Financial Institutions

Unlike cryptocurrency companies, financial institutions have become the main focus of Ripple's strategy in Korea. The company states that its technology can be used by organizations to adopt digital assets in various ways, including payments, custody, treasury management, and wallet infrastructure.

For Jeonbuk Bank, the immediate priority is cross-border settlement. The deployment provides the bank with a real-world application for blockchain without requiring its customers to directly handle cryptocurrencies. It also gives Ripple a working reference deployment as it markets similar institutional services across Asia-Pacific, a region where it already operates partnerships with banks and payment providers.

"Regional banks have significant responsibility in brokeraging digital financial infrastructure to the real economy," said Ripple Asia Pacific Managing Director Fiona Murray. Jeonbuk Bank's deployment puts that infrastructure directly into services used by businesses.