Ripple has partnered with South Korea’s Jeonbuk Bank to deploy its Ripple Payments platform for cross-border transfers, marking the first time a Korean regional bank has adopted the service.

The deal is notable because Jeonbuk Bank is far more than a small local lender. The bank had 26.8 trillion won ($19 billion) in assets at the end of Q1 2026 and holds a dominant position in its home market with 21.3% of deposits and 17.3% of loans in North Jeolla Province. It operates 82 branches and is part of JB Financial Group, one of South Korea’s major regional financial groups.

Jeonbuk Bank will use Ripple’s blockchain-based payments infrastructure to offer 24/7 international transfers to business customers, including import-export companies, technology startups, and online content creators. Ripple says transactions can settle in seconds to minutes compared with traditional correspondent banking transfers that can take days. The speed gap is especially relevant for Korean businesses: because the won is not freely convertible offshore, cross-border payments from South Korea have conventionally been routed through U.S. dollars and correspondent banks, adding intermediary steps and settlement windows to each transfer. Around-the-clock operation also removes the cut-off times of conventional banking hours. Ripple Payments itself is the successor to the company’s earlier RippleNet network following a 2024 rebrand.

The partnership is Ripple’s third major institutional deal in South Korea in 2026 so far, following agreements with Kyobo Life Insurance and internet-only lender Kbank, underscoring its push to embed its blockchain infrastructure deeper into the country’s mainstream financial sector. Korea’s institutional uptake has come alongside a maturing regulatory backdrop: the Digital Asset User Protection Act, the country’s first standalone cryptocurrency law, took effect in July 2024, and national legislators have since been drafting broader rules for digital assets and stablecoins. Ripple’s global footprint has also widened since its multi-year U.S. securities case over XRP sales concluded in 2025, when Ripple and the Securities and Exchange Commission dropped their respective appeals.

“With this partnership with Ripple, JB Jeonbuk Bank is ready to move beyond its role as a regional bank and emerge as a digital finance leader that meets global standards,” Jeonbuk Bank President Park Choon-won said.

The move matters for Ripple because winning a bank with meaningful dominance in a regional market provides stronger institutional validation of its payments technology than a pilot with a small fintech, while also giving the company another foothold in one of Asia’s most active digital-asset markets. Because Jeonbuk is the first of the country’s regional banks to adopt the service, a key indicator going forward will be whether its peers follow suit, and whether the initial business-customer focus later widens to other customer segments.