South Korean Banks Plan Joint Venture for Stablecoin Issuance

According to PANews, eight major South Korean banks are preparing to establish a joint venture to issue a Korean won-backed stablecoin. The participating banks include KB Kookmin Bank, Shinhan Bank, Woori Bank, NongHyup Bank, Korea Development Bank, Suhyup Bank, Citibank Korea, and Standard Chartered Bank Korea. This initiative is being developed in collaboration with the Open Blockchain and Decentralized Identifier Association and the Korea Financial Telecommunications and Clearings Institute. Currently, discussions are ongoing regarding the shared infrastructure for the project. If regulatory approval is granted, the joint venture could be launched by the end of this year or early next year. The project team is considering two models for stablecoin issuance: a trust model, where customer funds are individually trusted before issuing stablecoins, and a deposit token model, which links stablecoins to bank deposits.