Ripple has signed its first partnership with a South Korean regional bank, announcing on Aug. 18 that Jeonbuk Bank will deploy Ripple Payments for cross-border business remittances. The agreement makes Jeonbuk the first regional bank in South Korea to adopt the service, extending Ripple’s institutional push beyond large national lenders.
Jeonbuk Bank, part of JB Financial Group and based in North Jeolla Province, plans to offer the service to importers, exporters, technology startups and online creators that regularly send or receive money internationally. According to the announcement, the integration is designed to settle international transfers in seconds or minutes instead of the days sometimes required by conventional correspondent banking. The service will also operate continuously rather than being limited to local banking hours.
However, Ripple and Jeonbuk did not disclose initial payment corridors, supported currencies, transaction volumes, customer fees or a full commercial launch schedule. The companies also did not confirm that XRP, RLUSD or any Korean won stablecoin would be used as a settlement asset. Actual delivery times may depend on destination markets, payout providers, compliance checks and local banking infrastructure.
Ripple says its broader payment network operates across more than 60 markets and has processed over $100 billion since launch, though those figures apply globally and not specifically to the Jeonbuk deal. Jeonbuk Bank President Park Choon-won called the partnership “a new growth engine for the bank,” while Ripple Asia Pacific managing director Fiona Murray said the agreement reflected growing interest from Korean financial institutions.
The partnership follows Ripple’s earlier 2026 agreements with Kbank and Kyobo Life Insurance. Kbank tested blockchain remittances to the UAE and Thailand and later moved to deploy wallet infrastructure through Ripple Custody. Kyobo Life piloted near real-time settlement of tokenized Korean government bonds. Ripple also partnered with South Korean custody firm BDACS in 2025.
Some community commentators speculated that a future Korean won stablecoin could eventually support Ripple Payments through the XRP Ledger, but Ripple has not confirmed any such plan for Jeonbuk. Ripple has separately worked with Bitso on a U.S.-Mexico corridor linking the MXNB peso stablecoin and RLUSD, but that arrangement does not establish which assets Jeonbuk will use. Despite the announcement, XRP was down about 1.1% over 24 hours, according to CoinGecko data.
