KB Kookmin Bank, South Korea’s largest lender, plans to launch an on-chain cross-border payment service for import and export companies next month using JPMorgan’s Kinexys network, advancing the use of blockchain-based settlement infrastructure among major financial institutions.

The service will initially support U.S. dollar transfers across 10 countries: the United States, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, India, Thailand, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and South Africa. It will be connected with the existing SWIFT network, allowing near real-time cross-border payments and foreign exchange settlement while retaining current banking infrastructure.

For importers and exporters, cross-border payment speed and cost can affect working capital, supplier settlement, and reconciliation across jurisdictions. Banks have increasingly tested tokenized deposits, stablecoins, and permissioned blockchain networks as ways to improve settlement while keeping compliance, account relationships, and reporting within regulated financial channels.

The planned rollout follows the completion of a successful pilot in which won stablecoins were converted into dollar-backed stablecoins and then transferred through a local partner into bank accounts in Vietnam. KB Financial said transfers that typically take hours or days through the SWIFT banking network were completed in under three minutes during the pilot. The company also said fees were reduced by roughly 87%.

Kinexys, formerly known as Onyx, is JPMorgan’s blockchain platform for institutional payments, tokenized assets, and digital settlement. According to JPMorgan, the platform has processed more than $4 trillion in cumulative transactions and averages more than $7 billion in daily volume.

KB Financial Group, the parent company of KB Kookmin Bank, is South Korea’s largest banking group by assets, with about $553 billion, according to S&P Global.

The launch reflects continued use of blockchain infrastructure by traditional banks seeking faster and more efficient rails for cross-border payments, while integrating the technology with existing bank networks and settlement systems. A key point to watch after launch will be how the service performs at commercial scale across supported corridors, including settlement reliability, foreign exchange handling, and integration with existing treasury workflows.