Korea Connects Card Payments to Overseas Stablecoin Wallets
South Korea's domestic card payment infrastructure has been connected to an overseas digital asset wallet for the first time, according to a recent pilot project. BC Card announced that it completed a proof-of-concept (PoC) project linking overseas digital asset wallets to South Korea's domestic card payment infrastructure in collaboration with Coinbase and Waveridge. The pilot ran from April to approximately three months ago.
The pilot scenario assumed a foreign tourist using the dollar-pegged stablecoin USDC held in Coinbase's Layer 2 blockchain wallet 'Base' to make a payment at a BC Card QR-enabled merchant in South Korea. BC Card provided its existing card payment infrastructure and QR payment module, while Coinbase handled the overseas digital asset wallet and Waveridge was responsible for blockchain infrastructure and fiat currency conversion technology.
A notable aspect of this pilot is that it successfully implemented cancellation and refund transactions, a long-standing challenge for blockchain payments. When a payment is canceled at a merchant or system failure occurs, the USDC used for the payment is immediately returned to the customer's digital asset wallet.