Ripple Breaks Into Korea’s Regional Banking Market
Ripple is expanding its footprint in South Korea through a partnership with Jeonbuk Bank, the country’s first regional lender to deploy Ripple Payments for cross-border remittances.
Jeonbuk Bank has partnered with Ripple to introduce near real-time cross-border settlement for its business clients, according to an announcement on Tuesday.
The bank will use Ripple Payments for cross-border remittances, becoming the first regional lender in South Korea to deploy the technology. The service is aimed particularly at corporate customers including import-export companies, IT startups and online content creators.
Seconds Instead of Days
According to Ripple, its payments infrastructure can settle cross-border transactions within seconds to minutes and operates around the clock.
Traditional international bank transfers can involve several intermediary banks and take days to complete. Jeonbuk Bank expects the new infrastructure to allow it to offer faster and more transparent remittance services to its international business customers.
«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,» said Park Choon-won, President of JB Jeonbuk Bank.
He described the partnership as a potential new growth engine for the lender.
Ripple Builds Korean Footprint
The agreement adds to a series of partnerships Ripple has struck with established Korean financial institutions this year.
Kyobo Life Insurance, Korea’s largest life insurer, is exploring on-chain settlement of government bonds with Ripple, while Kbank, the country’s first internet-only bank, is deploying institutional wallet-as-a-service infrastructure through Ripple Custody.
The three partnerships span different parts of Ripple’s institutional offering – from custody and wallet infrastructure to payments and settlement – and indicate a broader effort by the company to establish itself within Korea’s financial sector.
«Growing Momentum» in Korea
Fiona Murray, Managing Director for Asia Pacific at Ripple, sees the latest agreement as evidence that Korean financial institutions are accelerating their adoption of digital asset infrastructure.
«This partnership with Jeonbuk Bank reflects the growing momentum we are seeing across Korea’s institutional financial sector,» Murray said.
She highlighted the significance of bringing the technology into the regional banking sector, given the role such lenders play in financing businesses and the real economy.
Founded in 2012, Ripple provides blockchain-based infrastructure covering payments, custody, liquidity and treasury management. Its ecosystem also includes the US dollar-denominated stablecoin RLUSD and the cryptocurrency XRP.
