Ripple has announced a partnership with Jeonbuk Bank that will give regional businesses in South Korea access to near-real-time cross-border settlement, targeting international transfers that can take days and offer limited visibility through traditional banking channels.
The agreement, announced on 18 August, makes Jeonbuk Bank the first regional bank in Korea to deploy Ripple Payments for cross-border remittances. The service is aimed at import-export companies, technology start-ups and online content creators that frequently transfer funds internationally.
Ripple Payments operates continuously and is designed to complete settlements within seconds or minutes. Conventional payment routes can involve several intermediary banks, creating delays of several days before funds reach their destination.
The platform supports transactions across more than 60 markets and brings together payment messaging, liquidity sourcing, compliance tools and settlement infrastructure for banks, payment providers and financial technology firms.
“Regional banks play a vital role in the real economy. As the first regional bank in Korea to deploy Ripple Payments, Jeonbuk Bank is extending near real-time cross-border settlement directly to the businesses it serves, and this is a meaningful step for Korea’s broader financial ecosystem,” said Ripple Managing Director for Asia Pacific Fiona Murray.
Jeonbuk Bank President Park Choon-won said: “This partnership will become a new growth engine for the bank, and we will lead innovation that reshapes the financial paradigm, going beyond the adoption of new technology.”
The deal forms part of Ripple’s wider institutional strategy, which includes the XRP Ledger, its native digital asset XRP and the RLUSD stablecoin. The XRP Ledger uses validator consensus instead of mining, generally confirming ledger updates within seconds. It also supports payments, tokenisation and the issuance of digital assets.
Ripple Chief Executive Officer Brad Garlinghouse said in June that companies acquired by Ripple process about $16 trillion in payments and clearing activity each year. He said digital assets accounted for close to zero per cent of that volume, describing the difference as an opportunity to expand XRP settlement across institutional financial processes.
That ambition was also reflected in comments made by Ripple Middle East and Africa Managing Director Reece Merrick in a 24 June post on X. Merrick compared the development of crypto payments with the early stages of online commerce, arguing that infrastructure and confidence must develop before wider adoption can take place.
Ripple’s institutional expansion extends beyond payments into brokerage, custody and market infrastructure. An integration in April gave Ripple Prime clients access to bitcoin options on Bullish and allowed RLUSD to be used for options trading. The arrangement connected the brokerage’s customers with spot, futures, perpetuals and regulated cryptocurrency derivatives markets.
The move towards faster digital settlement is being examined by policymakers. Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook said in May that tokenisation could improve settlement times, recordkeeping, automation and the movement of collateral. She also warned that round-the-clock tokenised markets could create liquidity and operational risks, including faster runs, greater market interconnectedness, smart-contract failures and cyberattacks.
South Korean authorities are separately strengthening safeguards for domestic virtual-asset platforms. After an erroneous payout by Bithumb, the Financial Services Commission said exchanges would need to introduce real-time reconciliation between ledger and wallet balances every five minutes, automated kill-switch criteria, monthly external verification and stronger controls for high-risk transactions. Those requirements apply to virtual-asset exchanges and not to Jeonbuk Bank’s cross-border remittance service.
Ripple also announced a 14 April partnership with Kyobo Life Insurance to test regulated transactions involving tokenised government bonds through Ripple Custody. The project will examine the technical and regulatory feasibility of using blockchain, including whether it can shorten the traditional two-business-day settlement period.
On 27 April, Kbank agreed a separate partnership with Ripple to test blockchain-based overseas remittances and a digital-wallet proof of concept. The pilot will assess transaction stability and on-chain transfers with partners in the United Arab Emirates and Thailand using Ripple’s Palisade wallet infrastructure.
The source article also states that Ripple nearly shut down after the United States Securities and Exchange Commission sued the company, with Brad Garlinghouse considering further action, but it provides no additional detail.
