S. Korea’s Shinhan Bank, SCB TechX, complete second stablecoin trial on Hedera

Shinhan Bank, the second largest bank in South Korea, and SCB TechX, the technology unit of the oldest bank in Thailand, Siam Commercial Bank, announced on Tuesday the completion of their second stablecoin transaction trial on Hedera, a public distributed ledger network.

Fast facts

• The pilot achieved real-time settlement and real-time foreign exchange rate integration across the Thai Baht (THB), New Taiwan dollar (NTD), and South Korean won (KRW), Hedera said in a statement on Tuesday.
• The proof of concept tested by Shinhan and SCB TechX is Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible, which can theoretically enable participation from other EVM-based stablecoins, which includes the world’s largest stablecoins USDT and USDC.
• “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,” said Byunghee Kim, chief of Shinhan’s blockchain division.
• Elsewhere in Asia-Pacific, Singapore-based StraitsX, a digital asset payments infrastructure, partnered with Mastercard, IDEMIA, The HBAR Foundation, and Carbonseed last year.Earth to explore advantages of stablecoins.
• Australian blockchain fintech startup Ettle Pty Ltd. launched Australian dollar-pegged stablecoin AUDE and completed its first transaction in November last year. Australia’s ANZ Banking Group introduced its Australian dollar-pegged stablecoin, A$DC, and completed its first transaction in March last year.

Author profile

Pradipta Mukherjee

Pradipta Mukherjee is a business reporter and has worked for Bloomberg News and Business Standard in India. An MBA and a post-graduate in Economics, Mukherjee focuses on financial markets and corporates. She is a Mary Morgan Hewitt award recipient for Women in Journalism. She has also won the Jefferson Fellowship; the Thomson Reuters Foundation fellowship on ‘Social Media and Digital Journalism’ at The Chinese University of Hong Kong; and most recently, the Kiplinger Fellowship at Ohio University, USA.

pradipta.mukherjee@forkast.news

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Yohan Yun

Yohan is an Assignment Editor at Forkast and has worked as an assistant reporter covering stories in Asia for media publications such as Bloomberg BNA and Forbes, on topics related to Korea-US FTA, technology, environment, 2017 tax legislation amendments.

yohan.yun@forkast.news @hyoseopyun Yohan Yun

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