SEOUL, South Korea, July 18, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Shinhan Bank (the first modern bank in Korea), SCB TechX (Siam Commercial Bank's technology innovation business unit), and the largest financial institution in Taiwan today announced the successful completion of a stablecoin remittance proof-of-concept (PoC) pilot. The PoC was built on the highly-efficient and eco-friendly Hedera open-source public network.

The pilot achieved real-time settlement and real-time foreign exchange (FX) rate integration across the Thai Baht (THB), New Taiwan dollar (NTD), and South Korean won (KRW) in a test environment that aligns to current production capabilities. The PoC is EVM-compatible, meaning that any EVM-based stablecoin issuers can participate using the framework going forward.

This PoC is a continuation of Shinhan Bank's previous work that started in 2021, when they partnered with Standard Bank on stablecoin international remittances (see https://hedera.com/blog/shinhan-bank-to-conduct-stablecoin-international-remittance-poc-on-hedera-network-in-partnership-with-major-multinational-bank). The second pilot's success marks a significant milestone in the quest for efficient, low-cost, cross-border payments.

"We are pleased to have partnered with Hedera to explore the potential of stablecoins as a means of facilitating cross-border remittances," said Byunghee Kim, Chief of the Blockchain division at Shinhan Bank. "The successful completion of this second PoC marks an important step forward in our efforts to make cross-border payments faster, cheaper, and more accessible to people around the world." Byunghee Kim further highlighted the importance of leveraging blockchain technology for cross-border payments, stating that, "Stablecoins offer a low-cost, fast, and reliable way to transfer value across borders, which can help to increase financial inclusion and improve access to financial services for individuals and businesses in underserved communities. With this next phase of PoC, we are pleased to have demonstrated how the use of Hedera's EVM-compatible technology helps eliminate intermediaries, reduce costs, and speed up the remittance process."

SCB TechX emphasized the potential of stablecoins to increase financial inclusion, as their CEO, Trirat Suwanprateeb, stated that "stablecoins offer a low-cost, fast, and reliable way to transfer value across borders, which can help to increase financial inclusion and improve access to financial services for individuals and businesses in underserved communities."

This announcement marks an important milestone for the financial industry, as more banks and financial institutions look to explore the potential of blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT) to transform the way we conduct cross-border payments.

About Shinhan Bank
Shinhan Bank is a leading commercial bank in South Korea with KRW 664.4 trillion in assets. The company provides a full range of banking services to its 27 million customers - individual consumers, SMEs and large corporations- with 887 branches including 166 global branches in twenty countries; the company also serves its 15.9 million mobile users with its award-winning app 'SOL.' The company's financial group 'Shinhan Financial Group' is a diversified holding company with 15 companies including Shinhan Card, Shinhan Investment and Shinhan Life. The financial group's stock (KRX:055550) is listed on the Korea Exchange.

About SCB TechX
SCB TechX Co., Ltd. is a digitally native, industry-leading, platform-as-a-service business that provides innovative banking services (such as loan products and checking and savings accounts) and non-banking services (like food delivery, health and wellness content, and online travel booking) to commercial institutions and consumers throughout Southeast Asia. A true cloud-native entity, SCB TechX helps institutions reinvent how they engage with their customers, while driving significant efficiencies in the back office. To learn more, please visit www.scbtechx.io.

About Hedera
The Hedera network is the most sustainable public ledger for the decentralized economy. Hedera's robust ecosystem is built by a global community, on a network governed by a diverse council of industry-leading organizations, including abrdn, Avery Dennison, Boeing, Chainlink Labs, COFRA Holding, DBS Bank, Dell Technologies, Dentons, Deutsche Telekom, DLA Piper, EDF (Électricité de France), eftpos, FIS (WorldPay), Google, IBM, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), LG Electronics, The London School of Economics (LSE), Magalu, Nomura Holdings, ServiceNow, Shinhan Bank, Standard Bank Group, Swirlds, Tata Communications, Ubisoft, University College London (UCL), Wipro, and Zain Group.

For more information, visit www.hedera.com, or follow us on Twitter at @Hedera, Telegram at t.me/hederahashgraph, or Discord at www.hedera.com/discord. The Hedera whitepaper can be found at www.hedera.com/papers.

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