Ripple, Jeonbuk Bank to speed Korea cross-border payments

Ripple announced on Aug. 18 that Jeonbuk Bank will deploy Ripple Payments for cross-border remittances, making it the first regional lender in Korea to use the platform. The bank said the service aims to settle business transfers in seconds or minutes rather than the days common with traditional correspondent banking.

The service is aimed at import-export companies, technology startups and online content creators that regularly send funds overseas. Ripple Payments operates continuously and is designed to provide near-real-time settlement and more tracking visibility compared with transfers that route through multiple intermediary banks.

Ripple Payments supports transactions across more than 60 markets and integrates payment messaging, liquidity sourcing, compliance checks and settlement infrastructure for banks, payment providers and fintech firms.

Fiona Murray, Ripple’s managing director for Asia Pacific, said: “As the first regional bank in Korea to deploy Ripple Payments, Jeonbuk Bank is extending near real-time cross-border settlement directly to the businesses it serves.” She described the agreement as part of growing institutional interest in digital-asset infrastructure in Korea.

Ripple’s institutional offerings include the XRP Ledger, the native token XRP and the RLUSD stablecoin. The XRP Ledger confirms transactions through validator consensus rather than mining and typically records ledger updates within seconds, supporting payments, tokenization and issuance of digital assets. Brad Garlinghouse has noted that businesses acquired by Ripple process roughly $16 trillion in annual payments and clearing activity, with digital assets currently representing a very small share of that volume.

Beyond remittances, Ripple has integrated custody and brokerage features for institutional clients. Earlier integrations gave clients access to bitcoin options on a trading venue and allowed use of RLUSD in options trading, linking custody and brokerage services with spot, futures and regulated derivatives.

In Korea, Ripple is running additional pilots. A project with Kyobo Life Insurance will test regulated tokenized government bond settlements using Ripple Custody to assess whether blockchain can shorten the typical two-business-day settlement window. A separate pilot with Kbank will evaluate blockchain-based overseas remittances and a digital wallet proof of concept involving partners in the United Arab Emirates and Thailand using Ripple’s Palisade wallet infrastructure.

Regulators in Korea have tightened operational controls for virtual-asset platforms after an erroneous payout by a local exchange. The Financial Services Commission requires exchanges to perform ledger-to-wallet balance reconciliation at least every five minutes, implement automated kill-switch criteria, undergo monthly external verification and apply stronger controls for high-risk transactions. Those requirements apply to virtual-asset exchanges and do not cover Jeonbuk Bank’s remittance service.

Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook has said tokenization could improve settlement times, recordkeeping, automation and collateral mobility, while warning that 24-hour tokenized markets may raise liquidity and operational risks, including faster runs, greater market interconnectedness, smart-contract failures and cyberattacks.

Park Choon-won, president of Jeonbuk Bank, declared: “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.” The bank and Ripple did not provide a public timetable for wider rollout beyond the Aug. 18 announcement.