Shinhan Financial Group and Visa have agreed to develop stablecoin infrastructure and AI-driven payment models.

The partnership is the first time a top-tier South Korean financial group has formally adopted Visa’s enterprise stablecoin platform, which launched in July.

South Korea is advancing its Digital Asset Basic Act, a legislative framework covering stablecoin regulation, virtual asset service provider licensing and crypto exchange-traded funds.

Shinhan, which manages roughly 134 trillion won in assets, will use Visa’s stablecoin system to test issuance, remittance and redemption functions and to integrate the technology into card payment settlement.

The companies plan pilot projects for business-to-business and business-to-consumer payments and aim to create a Korea-specific settlement stack.

Jin Ok-dong, chairman of Shinhan Financial Group, said the collaboration will combine Shinhan’s financial capabilities with Visa’s global infrastructure to design future finance models.

Shinhan has also pursued other crypto initiatives, including a recent four-party agreement with the Solana Foundation, Etherfuse and Orca to test a won‑denominated tokenized fund, and a prior partnership with Solana in April to trial stablecoin payment systems.

Mastercard’s crypto activities in South Korea have so far stopped short of full stablecoin settlement integration.

The collaboration highlights growing institutional interest in stablecoin use as regulatory clarity improves in South Korea.