K Bank partners with Ripple for remittances

South Korea’s K Bank said Monday it signed a strategic partnership with Ripple to test blockchain technology for overseas remittances. (koreaherald.com) The agreement was signed at K Bank’s headquarters in Seoul, with Chief Executive Choi Woo-hyung and Ripple Asia-Pacific Managing Director Fiona Murray attending the ceremony. (koreaherald.com) K Bank said it wants to see whether Ripple’s network and blockchain infrastructure can make its existing remittance service faster, cheaper and more transparent. (koreaherald.com) The bank said it is already running a proof of concept. In phase one, it tested transfers through a separate application; in phase two, it is virtually linking customer accounts with internal systems to check transaction stability. (koreaherald.com) Phase two will also test on-chain transfers with partners in the United Arab Emirates and Thailand, two markets where K Bank said it has memorandums of understanding for stablecoin-based transactions. (koreaherald.com) K Bank said it used an in-house wallet in the first phase and will switch to Ripple’s software-as-a-service wallet, Palisade, in the second phase to test a model it says is faster to deploy and easier to scale under compliance rules. (koreaherald.com) The timing lines up with changes in K Bank’s own remittance business. On April 24, the bank posted a notice saying overseas account transfer fees would be cut and changed starting April 28, and on April 27 it posted an updated remittance service disclosure. (kbanknow.com) Ripple has been building in South Korea for years through remittance and payments partners including Coinone Transfer, Sentbe and Global Money Express, known as GME Remittance. (ripple.com 1) (ripple.com 2) (ripple.com 3) Ripple also said in 2024 that it launched its RLUSD stablecoin, and K Bank said the new partnership includes talks on digital wallets, remittance models and broader digital-asset cooperation. (koreaherald.com) For now, the project is still a test. The next signal is whether K Bank moves from pilot transfers in Thailand and the United Arab Emirates to a live remittance product. (koreaherald.com)