A yearlong industry pilot tested issuance, payments, refunds and settlement on won stablecoin rails, while showing existing card and merchant networks can connect to on-chain systems.
South Korea's card industry has completed a roughly yearlong proof-of-concept aimed at preparing for a won stablecoin framework, with the Credit Finance Association of Korea and nine domestic card issuers submitting a final report on July 22. The pilot tested the full payments process, including stablecoin issuance and distribution, transaction monitoring, settlement and risk management, and simulated real transaction conditions covering payments, cancellations and refunds. It also verified a gas-fee sponsorship function that would let users pay without holding a separate token for network fees. The results indicated that existing cardholder and merchant networks can be linked to on-chain systems, reducing some of the technical uncertainty around integrating stablecoins into mainstream payments. The industry now plans to engage with the National Assembly and regulators as South Korea moves toward the Digital Asset Basic Act, which the government has said it aims to enact within 2026 to support the institutionalization of won stablecoins and related measures.