KB Securities has formalized a three-party memorandum of understanding with Securitize and the Optimism Foundation to design, issue, and distribute tokenized securities for institutional investors in South Korea, with the first planned product being a tokenized money market fund on OP Mainnet.
The collaboration, announced on Sept. 23, combines KB Securities' domestic institutional client base and securities issuance experience, Securitize's regulated tokenization infrastructure and transfer agency functions, and Optimism's Layer 2 blockchain technology. A second investment vehicle based on a flagship strategy from KB Asset Management is also on the roadmap, though no launch date or strategy name was disclosed.
According to company figures included in the release, KB Securities held 76.5 trillion won in total assets and 6.9 trillion won in shareholders' equity as of December 2025. The brokerage is part of KB Financial Group and operates across six countries, including the United States.
The initial products will target corporate and institutional clients such as domestic insurers and pension funds. KB Securities said later stages could include tokenized stocks, American depositary receipts, corporate bonds, and Korean government bonds as local rules develop. It is also assessing whether existing tokenized funds from global asset managers can be distributed to institutions in Korea.
The initiative aligns with South Korea's staged tokenized securities framework. In January 2026, the National Assembly passed amendments to the Capital Markets Act and the Electronic Securities Act to recognize distributed ledgers as valid record-keeping systems for commercial securities. The first phase of the digital securities framework could come into force on February 4, 2027, allowing institutional private placements of debt and money market funds under Financial Services Commission oversight.
Securitize manages more than $5 billion in tokenized assets worldwide and supports BlackRock's BUIDL tokenized Treasury fund. Its common shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker SECZ. The announcement did not provide revenue estimates or financial terms.
Jing Wang, CEO of OP Labs, called KB Securities' choice of OP Mainnet "an early signal that this model works beyond the U.S. dollar market," while Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo said the companies were bringing tokenization infrastructure to Korean capital markets.
