Ripple Signs Korean Regional Bank for Cross-Border Remittances

Ripple has signed an agreement with Jeonbuk Bank in Seoul to deploy its payments platform, making it the first regional lender in Korea to use Ripple Payments. This move aims to speed up cross-border transactions for business customers, which currently take days using SWIFT.

Jeonbuk's business customers are mostly import-export companies, IT startups, and online content creators that have been sending money through correspondent banking. With Ripple Payments, these transactions will be cleared in seconds and run around the clock.

Ripple has sold three different products to three institutions in Korea this year: Kyobo Life Insurance for tokenised government bond settlement, Kbank for institutional wallet infrastructure through Ripple Custody, and now Jeonbuk Bank for cross-border remittances. Despite the news, the XRP price fell on the same day, slipping to $0.98 before recovering to $1.01.

The deal has sparked debate about whether it will move the XRP price higher. While Ripple's Managing Director for Asia Pacific, Fiona Murray, framed regional banks as crucial for the real economy, experts argue that an announcement like Jeonbuk's can be genuine business news without saying anything about the XRP price.

Korea is building won stablecoin rails without XRP, partnering with Kaia and Circle to convert won into dollar stablecoins. A bridge asset could do work that two stablecoins cannot, but the settlement asset for a Korean corridor has not been named by Ripple.