South Korean financial group Shinhan has agreed to test the issuance, transfer, and redemption of stablecoins on Visa's payment platform, its second major stablecoin partnership in four months as Seoul moves closer to formal rules for the sector.

On August 24, the two companies signed a strategic business agreement at Shinhan's headquarters in central Seoul. Shinhan plans to run stablecoin functions through Visa's existing platform and then build a business model suited to the Korean market. The pilot covers issuing tokens, sending them to other parties, and cashing them in.

The partners also intend to test the tokens in card payment settlement, develop AI-powered payment models, and expand both business-to-business and business-to-consumer payment lines. Shinhan said it will connect Visa's global network to its main subsidiaries, including Shinhan Bank, Shinhan Card, and Jeju Bank, signaling an effort to align any future digital asset services with its existing retail and card infrastructure rather than build them in isolation.

Jin Ok-dong, chairman of Shinhan Financial Group, said: "Through this agreement, we have expanded our long-standing partnership with Visa to the broader digital finance sector." He added that the group aims to "deliver differentiated financial experiences to our customers."

Shinhan's broader stablecoin push

Shinhan Card and the Solana Foundation signed a memorandum of understanding at the end of April to test stablecoin payments on Solana's layer-1 blockchain. At the beginning of August, the group's asset management arm reached a deal with the Solana Foundation, Etherfuse, and Orca to test a KRW-denominated tokenized fund.

Shinhan has also moved into token standards. In July, it joined Samsung Electronics and Dunamu among the 13 Korean companies entering OpenUSD, a 140-company effort supported by Visa and Mastercard to standardize a dollar-backed token for payments. The current Visa agreement traces back to April, when business leaders from both sides discussed cooperating. In its most recent quarter, Shinhan reported net income of 1.82 trillion won, roughly $1.3 billion.

Building ahead of the rules

South Korea is working through the Digital Asset Basic Act, a framework covering stablecoins, exchange licensing, and crypto exchange-traded products (ETPs). In December, lawmakers and regulators proposed restricting KRW stablecoin issuance to consortia in which commercial banks own at least 51%, a response to Bank of Korea warnings that non-bank issuers could undermine monetary policy and deposit protection. Until the legislation is finalized, Shinhan is building services it cannot legally sell yet.

Rival KB Financial, meanwhile, completed a KRW stablecoin pilot in May on the Kaia blockchain, reducing cross-border transfer times to around three minutes.