Ripple has announced a partnership with JB Jeonbuk Bank to deploy Ripple Payments for cross-border business remittances, making the regional lender the first bank of its kind in Korea to adopt the service, according to the company's official announcement.

The integration is designed to replace slower traditional international transfers, which typically move through multiple intermediary banks and can take days to settle, with 24/7 payments capable of settling within seconds to minutes. Ripple Payments is the product line the company rolled out in 2023 as an upgraded version of its long-running RippleNet cross-border payments network.

Jeonbuk Bank is the banking arm of listed financial holding company JB Financial Group, created through the 2020 merger of the group's two regional bank subsidiaries, and operates mainly in the Jeolla region of southwestern Korea. In a Korean banking market dominated by a handful of nationwide banking groups, regional lenders like Jeonbuk Bank anchor financial services for smaller local businesses, the customer base the new remittance offering is designed to reach.

According to Jeonbuk Bank's president, Park Choon-won, the partnership supports the bank's ambition to become a digital finance leader and expand beyond its traditional regional banking role.

"This partnership will become a new growth engine for the bank, and we will lead innovation that reshapes the financial paradigm, going beyond the adoption of new technology," Park said.

Jeonbuk Bank will use the infrastructure to offer faster and more transparent remittance services to global business customers, including import-export businesses, technology startups, and online content creators.

"Regional banks play a vital role in the real economy. As the first regional bank in Korea to deploy Ripple Payments, Jeonbuk Bank is extending near real-time cross-border settlement directly to the businesses it serves, and this is a meaningful step for Korea's broader financial ecosystem," said Ripple's Managing Director for Asia Pacific, Fiona Murray.

The announcement follows two other Ripple deals with major Korean financial institutions this year. Kyobo Life Insurance is working with Ripple on the potential on-chain settlement of tokenized government bonds, while Kbank is deploying an institutional wallet-as-a-service infrastructure through Ripple Custody.

The string of deals also comes as Korean lawmakers debate digital-asset legislation, including proposals for regulating won-denominated stablecoins, which would set clearer rules for how banks and other institutions can use blockchain infrastructure.

Ripple said the three partnerships reflect the expanding range of digital-asset use cases being pursued by Korean financial institutions, spanning payments, tokenized assets, custody, and wallet infrastructure. As the first of the country's regional banks to deploy the payments product, Jeonbuk Bank now provides an early test of whether that expansion reaches Korea's smaller lenders.