South Korean Banks are Embracing Crypto With Kaia Chain

@KaiaChain has officially completed a stablecoin issuance and settlement pilot with South Korea's iM Bank, a commercial lender under DGB Financial Group, marking another concrete step in the network's push to become the primary settlement layer for regulated Korean won digital currency.

Building the Compliance Architecture for KRW Stablecoins

The iM Bank pilot follows a separate proof-of-concept that @KaiaChain conducted with KB Kookmin Bank, South Korea's largest lender. On 17 May 2026, KB Financial Group announced the completion of a pilot covering offline retail payments and international money transfers using stablecoins. The full cross-border transfer was completed in under three minutes, with fees roughly 87% lower than an equivalent transfer through SWIFT. Together, the two pilots establish what @KaiaChain describes as a compliant architecture for live KRW stablecoin deployments across the region.

Kaia is a public Layer-1 blockchain built from the merger of Kakao's Klaytn and LINE's Finschia networks, engineered specifically for institutional stablecoin settlement with one-second block times and instant finality. Klaytn previously participated in the Bank of Korea's CBDC pilot ecosystem, and the Bank of Korea has continued to advance CBDC testing through initiatives such as Project Hangang.

The momentum at the banking level is also reinforced by South Korea's broader regulatory direction. Eight Korean banks are advancing plans for a joint venture to issue a KRW stablecoin, signaling a competitive build-out of regulated digital won infrastructure ahead of expected legislation.

Scaling Across Asia With Regional Stablecoins

Beyond Korea, @KaiaChain is extending the same settlement framework across Asia, integrating regional stablecoin assets including $JPYC, $IDRX, and $IDRP to address fragmented cross-border payment systems. As an EVM-compatible Layer 1, Kaia starts with stablecoin settlement and transforms it into onchain finance and capital markets, with stablecoins entering Kaia directly from everyday apps like LINE.

Kakao and LINE sit at the center of two of the largest messaging and digital platform ecosystems in Korea and Japan respectively, making Kaia a significant piece of regional digital infrastructure. That reach gives the network a distribution advantage as it looks to unify local currency payment rails across multiple Asian markets.

South Korea's Digital Asset Basic Act, which would authorize domestic issuance of KRW-backed stablecoins for the first time after nearly nine years of prohibition, is anticipated to move through the legislative process in 2026. KB Financial has reportedly stated that it intends to prepare its operational infrastructure for commercial stablecoin services once South Korean regulators finalize digital asset legislation.

Sources:
BTQ Technologies Press Release: South Korea's First Bank-Led KRW Stablecoin Proof-of-Concept
BitKE: South Korea's Largest Bank Successfully Completes Local Stablecoin Pilot
Crypto Times: South Korea Stablecoin Pilot and Kaia's Institutional Momentum