K Bank, an online-only lender in South Korea, has signed a strategic partnership with Ripple to test blockchain-based offshore remittances, marking another expansion the bank faces in Ripple’s payments infrastructure in Asia.
The agreement was announced on Monday by K and First Bank I mentioned By The Korea Herald, it was signed at the bank’s headquarters in Seoul. K Bank CEO Choi Woo-hyung and Ripple’s Asia Pacific managing director Fiona Murray attended the ceremony along with officials from both companies.
K Bank turns to Ripple to conduct blockchain transfer tests
The partnership focuses on whether Ripple’s global network and blockchain infrastructure can improve the speed, cost efficiency and transparency of K Bank’s offshore remittance system. For Ripple, the deal expands its long-standing institutional payments strategy into South Korea’s digital banking market. For K Bank, it gives the lender a direct test path for blockchain-based cross-border settlement at a time when stablecoins and token payment bars are becoming a more serious part of bank-wide infrastructure discussions.
“We are pleased to partner with K Bank, which has helped set the standard for digital banking in Korea and continues to drive innovation,” Murray said. “This partnership will help enhance K-Bank’s competitiveness in blockchain-based outward remittance technology,” Choi said.
K Bank is already conducting a proof of concept with Ripple Money transfers abroad. According to the bank, the first phase tested transfers through a separate application, while the second phase is now evaluating the stability of transactions by physically linking customer accounts to internal systems. These details are noteworthy because they indicate that the project is moving beyond an independent sandbox and toward a model that studies how blockchain-based remittance infrastructure interacts with the architecture of bank accounts.
The second phase will also test cross-chain transfers with partners in the UAE and Thailand. K Bank signed memorandums of understanding in both markets Transactions based on stablecoinsaccording to the report. This gives the Ripple partnership a broader regional angle: the work is not just about improving the remittance package of local Korean banks, but also about testing how blockchain rails work across specific cross-border corridors.
A wallet component is also part of the experience. K Bank used an internal wallet in the first phase of the proof of concept, but plans to use Ripple’s SaaS-based digital wallet, Palisade, in the second phase. The goal is to test a faster, more scalable model for compliance and deployment, according to the bank.
Notably, Ripple expanded deeper into stablecoin infrastructure after launching RLUSD in 2024. It has applied for a US trust bank charter, with The approval process is still ongoing.
At press time, XRP was trading at $1.41.
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