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Point of Focus
- South Korea’s Jeonbuk is the first regional bank to deploy Ripple Payments.
- Ripple says the service will replace transfers taking several days.
- The agreement is Ripple’s third South Korean partnership in 2026.
Ripple has secured its third South Korean partnership of 2026, with Jeonbuk Bank becoming the country’s first regional lender to deploy Ripple Payments for cross-border business transfers.
The partnership will allow Jeonbuk Bank to offer near real-time, round-the-clock settlement to customers including import-export companies, technology startups and online content creators.
These businesses have traditionally relied on international bank transfers that can take several days to complete.
Ripple payments replaces multi-day transfer process
Conventional cross-border payments often pass through several intermediary banks using the SWIFT messaging network, adding time, cost and limited visibility to the process. Ripple says its payments infrastructure can settle transactions within seconds or minutes and operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The company said the system will enable Jeonbuk Bank to provide faster, more transparent and cost-effective remittance services. However, the announcement did not disclose whether XRP, Ripple USD (RLUSD), another stablecoin or a conventional fiat settlement mechanism will underpin the transfers.
Jeonbuk Bank is the first regional bank in Korea to deploy Ripple Payments, replacing multi-day SWIFT transfers with near real-time, 24/7 cross-border settlement for its business customers. Our third Korean partnership this year, after Kyobo Life Insurance and Kbank, partnering…
— Ripple (@Ripple) August 18, 2026
“This partnership with Jeonbuk Bank reflects the growing momentum we are seeing across Korea’s institutional financial sector,” Ripple’s Asia-Pacific managing director, Fiona Murray, said.
Jeonbuk Bank President Park Choon-won described the agreement as a potential “new growth engine” that could help the regional lender emerge as a digital finance leader operating to global standards.
Third Korean partnership expands Ripple’s reach
The agreement follows Ripple partnerships with Kbank and Kyobo Life Insurance earlier this year, extending the company’s Korean footprint across payments, custody and wallet infrastructure.
Kbank, South Korea’s first internet-only bank, is working with Ripple on institutional wallet infrastructure and has tested stablecoin-based, on-chain remittances to the United Arab Emirates and Thailand.
🚨 JUST IN: #Ripple just signed its third Korean institution this year. Look at what each one bought. 🇰🇷
→ 🇰🇷 Jeonbuk Bank, now the first regional bank in Korea on Ripple Payments: cross-border remittances
→ 🇰🇷 Kbank, Korea's first internet-only bank: institutional wallet… https://t.co/0BPc5o9u6l pic.twitter.com/ihgiXLwJtD
— RippleXity (@RippleXity) August 18, 2026
That initiative remains a multi-phase proof of concept, with no confirmed commercial launch date.
Kyobo Life Insurance, meanwhile, partnered with Ripple to explore the settlement of tokenized South Korean government bonds using Ripple Custody.
Adoption does not confirm XRP use
Together, the three deals show Ripple gaining traction across different segments of South Korea’s financial industry as institutions build digital-asset capabilities and the country develops its regulatory framework.
Still, adoption of Ripple’s enterprise infrastructure does not necessarily translate into use of XRP.
Jeonbuk Bank and Ripple have not identified the asset or assets that will provide liquidity or settlement for the new service.
The confirmed development is narrower but significant: a Korean regional bank is moving business customers from multi-day cross-border transfers toward an always-on system offering near real-time settlement.
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