Shinhan Card, South Korea’s largest card issuer with 28 million cardholders, has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Solana Foundation. The deal covers stablecoin payment technology and the joint development of next-generation payment infrastructure.
This is no small partnership. It’s one of the largest TradFi-to-crypto collaborations announced in Asia this year, and puts Solana at the center of how a major Korean financial institution thinks about the future of payments.
What is already being built by Solana and Shinahan
Shinhan card Solana already completed an initial proof of concept last year. This new MOU expands the work to advanced proof of concept (PoC) on the Solana testnet. The two teams are building real payment scenarios between customers and merchants while testing the technical stability of the network under conditions closer to actual usage.
Much of the work focuses on non-custodial online wallets. Users retain full control of their assets without relying on a third party. This is important because it changes the entire model of trust. Traditional card payments rely on the bank or processor holding everything.
Non-custodial wallets place this responsibility on the user. Shinhan Card wants to figure out how to make this work safely across its 28 million customers.
TradFi-DeFi hybrid model
The partnership goes beyond payments. Shinhan Card is also developing a hybrid financial model that combines traditional financial infrastructure with DeFi.
The company plans to use Oracle technology to power its real-world transaction data blockchain Networks securely. From here, the goal is to build its own DeFi service ecosystem.
This is where the work gets interesting. It is necessary to test the stability of smart contract execution. A monitoring framework for next generation financial models must be established. None of this is theoretical anymore.
One major card issuer is already doing the engineering work to figure out how DeFi components can plug into existing financial infrastructure without breaking either side.
What’s out there for 28 million cardholders
The size of Shinhan Card’s user base is what makes this partnership different from most stablecoin pilots.
28 million cardholders represent a large percentage of the South Korean population. If a small portion of these users start making stablecoin payments through Solana-based infrastructure, the scale implications are significant.
The wording in the ad is also important. Shinhan Card says it will continue to enhance its Web3 capabilities and “review concrete plans to launch related services in line with future regulatory requirements.” The company is preparing to launch services, not just experiment with technology.
What both sides say
A Shinhan Card official said the partnership will help verify the practical applicability of blockchain technologies. The goal is to provide secure and convenient payment services by combining the company’s expertise and Solana’s infrastructure once regulatory conditions are in place.
A Solana The institution’s official said that the cooperation aims to overcome the restrictions imposed on current financial services. The partnership combines the trust and reliability of traditional finance and the efficiency of DeFi while prioritizing regulatory compliance and customer protection.
The regulatory framework on both sides is consistent. This is not a partnership trying to bypass regulation. It’s a partnership trying to build something that can be launched when regulation is achieved.
Final thoughts
Shinhan Card brings 28 million Korean cardholders closer to stablecoin payments on Solana. The MOU covers payment scenarios, non-custodial wallets, oracle integration, and hybrid TradFi-DeFi models.
The work is technical and the schedule depends on the organization, but the scale is real. As Korea’s largest card issuer starts engineering its payment future on Solana, it’s not a trial run. This is preparation for something tangible.
