Project XBY

Asia-Pacific · GDP rank #11

South Korea

KR · KRW @ 0.0006580/USD

South Korea has the most card-intense consumer economy in the G20: credit-card spending alone runs at roughly 90% of nominal GDP, supported by a three-decade policy stack of tax credits for card use, mandatory acceptance and subsidised merchant pricing. Super-app wallets (KakaoPay, Naver Pay, Toss) sit on top of cards as their settlement backbone rather than displacing them. Project Han-gang's Phase 2 went live in March 2026 with nine banks testing won-pegged deposit tokens, while the new BOK governor has publicly prioritised CBDC and bank tokens over stablecoins.

Tab 08

Pulse

The preceding ~90 days of macro, regulation, product, funding and milestone events. Each item is primary-sourced; no trade-press echo.

  1. 11 days agoregulation

    Korea ruling party advances RWA + stablecoin rules under existing framework

    The Democratic Party of Korea will advance tokenised real-world assets and stablecoins under current statutes, categorising stablecoins as a means of payment under the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act. The full Digital Asset Basic Law has slipped further into 2026 as the FSC and BOK continue to clash over stablecoin reserve oversight.

    • #fsc
    • #stablecoin
    • #rwa
    • #regulation

    Source: Crowdfund Insider

  2. 5 weeks agomilestone

    New BOK governor Shin Hyun-song centres CBDC and bank tokens, skips stablecoins

    Former BIS chief economist Shin Hyun-song was formally appointed Bank of Korea governor on 22 April. In his maiden policy address the next day he signalled a clear preference for CBDC and bank-issued deposit tokens over privately-issued stablecoins, reinforcing the Han-gang trajectory and putting BOK further at odds with the FSC's stablecoin licensing instinct.

    • #bok
    • #cbdc
    • #leadership
    • #stablecoin

    Source: CoinDesk

  3. 6 weeks agolaunch

    Korea issues oil-relief card payments to 70% of population via local SMB caps

    The government rolled out targeted oil-relief payments of ₩100k–600k to roughly 32.56 million people in the bottom 70% of income earners. Funds are loaded onto recipients' existing credit/debit cards and credited the day after application; spend is geofenced to local SMBs with turnover under ₩3bn, putting Card Finance Association tracking infrastructure in the disbursement spotlight.

    • #government
    • #subsidy
    • #smb
    • #cards

    Source: UPI

  4. 2 months agomilestone

    BOK kicks off Project Han-gang Phase 2 with nine banks

    Bank of Korea formally launched Phase 2 of Project Han-gang with nine commercial banks — Kyongnam Bank and iM Bank joining the seven Phase 1 institutions — testing won-pegged deposit tokens for retail payments and government subsidy disbursement. Phase 2 adds biometric authentication, direct P2P transfers between digital wallets, and auto-top-up. Large-scale all-nine-bank transactions are scheduled for H2 2026.

    • #bok
    • #han-gang
    • #tokenised-deposit
    • #cbdc

    Source: Bank of Korea

  5. 3 months agom&a

    Toss preliminary US IPO filing targets US$10bn+ valuation

    Viva Republica (Toss) filed preliminary documents for a Q2 2026 US listing on Nasdaq or NYSE at a target valuation above US$10 billion, possibly reaching US$15bn. The decision to bypass the Korean exchange follows post-IPO declines of roughly 70%-80% at KakaoBank and KakaoPay, which has soured Korean fintech valuations.

    • #toss
    • #ipo
    • #us
    • #super-app

    Source: KED Global

  6. 3 months agodata

    Credit card spending passes ₩1,130T in 2024 — ~90% of GDP

    Credit Finance Association data confirmed 2024 credit-card volume at ₩1,130 trillion, up 6% year-on-year. The ratio to nominal GDP — roughly 90% — remains the highest in the world. Debit / check-card growth was slower at 3%; super-app wallet transaction share in BOK's Survey on Payment Habits climbed to 14%.

    • #cards
    • #volume
    • #gdp
    • #crefia

    Source: Credit Finance Association of Korea