Two major financial institutions, South Korea's Hana Financial Group and the UK-based Standard Chartered Group, have announced a significant partnership to deepen their cooperation in global finance and digital assets. The two lenders signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on March 15th, with the signing ceremony taking place at Hana Bank's headquarters on March 13th.
The ceremony was attended by Ham Young-joo, Chairman of Hana Financial Group, and Bill Winters, CEO of Standard Chartered Group. According to reports from The Korea Times and Seoul Economic Daily, the executives exchanged views on cooperation in global and digital assets during the meeting.
Chairman Ham stated: "The partnership between Hana Financial Group and Standard Chartered Group, leveraging their extensive global networks and diverse financial know-how, will serve as a strong competitive edge in the global financial sector. We will create new growth opportunities by generating synergies in future financial domains, including digital assets." Winters emphasized South Korea's importance in Asian financial markets, describing the country as a "key hub."
The MOU specifically covers stablecoins, deposit-token experiments, and future tokenized instruments, tying into Hana's domestic stablecoin plans and pilots. Chairman Ham has previously described stablecoins as a "core future business" for Hana Financial, with goals to build an "ecosystem encompassing the issuance, distribution, use and circulation of (won-denominated stable) coins," as stated in his New Year's address in January.
This partnership builds on both institutions' existing crypto initiatives. In 2024, Hana Bank partnered with BitGo and SK Telecom to establish BitGo Korea, a local arm focused on institutional crypto custody. Hana Bank reported an all-time high net profit of ₩4 trillion in 2025. Standard Chartered has been expanding its crypto footprint through institutional custody services and pilots with tokenized bonds and other blockchain-based assets, while also backing several stablecoin ventures in markets like Hong Kong.
This collaboration follows previous cooperation between the two entities. In December 2025, Standard Chartered facilitated Hana Securities' first venture with digital assets. The current deal represents a broader trend where South Korea's major banks are racing to build compliant infrastructure around stablecoins, tokenized notes, and digital bonds that can integrate directly into the regulated financial system, shifting the market focus from retail speculation toward structured corporate and banking participation.
