South Korea's Largest Credit Card Issuer Shinhan Card Partners with Solana Foundation to Launch Stablecoin Payments
South Korea's largest credit card issuer, Shinhan Card, has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Solana Foundation to develop stablecoin payment technology, aiming to cover its 28 million cardholders.
The two parties will conduct PoC testing on the Solana testnet to simulate real payment scenarios between customers and merchants, focusing on verifying network stability and transaction experience.
This initiative aims to combine Solana's infrastructure with Shinhan Card's payment expertise to launch a secure and convenient blockchain payment environment when regulatory conditions improve.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
新韩卡 has previously explored multiple Web3 payment initiatives with blockchain technology companies. This collaboration with Solana continues its strategy to promote digital asset payments since 2025. As the largest player in the South Korean credit card market, it has tested various stablecoin settlement solutions to address high fees associated with traditional card payments.
In terms of capital strategy, Shinhan Card is mobilizing internal payment infrastructure resources and connecting with the Solana Foundation's APAC team to gradually introduce non-custodial wallets and instant settlements through the testnet PoC. The motivation is to capture market share in the payment sector following the implementation of South Korea's "Basic Law on Digital Assets," while reducing cross-border and merchant-side costs, transforming stablecoin traffic into incremental revenue for its credit card ecosystem.
Similar to Visa's early stablecoin settlement pilot with Solana or other banks in South Korea conducting blockchain cross-border tests, Shinhan Card is currently in an expansion phase transitioning from traditional finance to hybrid blockchain payments, focusing on validating the applicability of high-frequency small transaction scenarios on its 28 million user base.
Essentially, this represents a restructuring of the industry chain: traditional credit card networks are collaborating with Layer 1 blockchains to shift the payment clearing and settlement process from centralized systems to distributed ledgers. The mechanism leverages Solana's high throughput and low fee characteristics to address pain points for card organizations, while facilitating a structural shift in fund flows from bank-led to user-managed wallets as regulations gradually loosen.