South Korea’s Biggest Bank Taps JPMorgan Blockchain for Trade Payments

KB Kookmin Bank will launch a blockchain payment service for import and export companies in August. 

The bank will initially process US dollar payments for those clients over JPMorgan’s Kinexys network. It announced the plan on July 26.

South Korean Bank Moves Dollar Trade Payments Onto JPMorgan Blockchain

Kinexys is JPMorgan’s blockchain unit, formerly known as Onyx. It runs institutional payments, tokenization, and digital asset settlement.

The platform has processed more than $4 trillion since its launch. Average daily transactions exceed $7 billion.

The service will initially support dollar remittances to 10 countries, including South Korea, according to local media reports. The list covers the US, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, India, Thailand, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and South Africa. Korean branches and KB Kookmin’s Singapore office will offer the service. 

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This comes just days after KB Kookmin was selected for a government-backed deposit token payment project. The Ministry of Science and ICT and the Korea Internet & Security Agency run the program.

Whether other Korean lenders adopt Kinexys will test how far tokenized deposits reach beyond JPMorgan’s clients.

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