South Korea’s Shinhan Card and the Solana Foundation signed a strategic memorandum of understanding on April 30 to commercialize stablecoin payments and a Web3 payments stack, formalizing a partnership that already produced a working programmable-money smart contract design earlier this month. The agreement was signed at Shinhan Card’s Seoul headquarters by Vice President Kim Young-il and Lu Yin, the Solana Foundation’s Asia-Pacific business development lead, and it follows a six-project proof of concept Shinhan disclosed on April 9 with partners including Mastercard, Visa, Fireblocks, and Korean infrastructure firms Aton, BlockOdyssey, and IoTrust. The MOU positions one of Korea’s largest card issuers, with roughly 28 million users, to launch live stablecoin pilots on Solana once domestic regulation permits.
A stablecoin is a cryptocurrency designed to hold a steady value by being pegged to a fiat currency or asset, most commonly the US dollar.
Key takeaways
- Shinhan Card and the Solana Foundation signed a strategic MOU on April 30 to move a Web3 payments stack from proof of concept to production.
- The April 9 PoC tested six use cases, including hybrid check-and-credit cards, cross-border stablecoin remittance with Visa, and hardware-wallet card payments.
- Shinhan is one of nine Korean card issuers piloting stablecoin payments, while eight of the country’s largest banks are preparing a won-pegged stablecoin joint venture.
Published: April 30, 2026 16:00 UTC
Why the deal matters
The Shinhan MOU is the first time a top-tier Korean card issuer has formally committed to building production stablecoin rails on Solana rather than running another isolated pilot. Shinhan Card serves about 28 million customers and is the card affiliate of Shinhan Financial Group, one of South Korea’s “big four” banking conglomerates. A live deployment would put stablecoin settlement inside everyday Korean retail checkout, not just B2B treasury flows.
The MOU’s scope is concrete. Shinhan and the Solana Foundation will simulate merchant-to-customer payment flows on the Solana testnet, stress-test network stability under retail load, and run technical verification of a non-custodial wallet, according to The Korea Herald. That last piece matters because Korean regulators have been pushing card issuers toward self-custody architectures rather than exchange-held models.
What the proof of concept covered
The April 9 PoC was unusually ambitious for a card issuer. Shinhan worked with Solana and infrastructure provider Node Infra on the programmable-money smart contract design itself. Mastercard and Fireblocks built the hybrid card structure, where check mode triggers an instant stablecoin withdrawal and credit mode uses stablecoin as collateral. Visa handled cross-border stablecoin remittance and settlement, and Korean firms Aton, BlockOdyssey, and IoTrust integrated IC-chip hardware wallets into the card form factor.
Six end-to-end flows were tested: blockchain-based peer-to-peer payments, an integrated digital-asset payment infrastructure, a hybrid check-and-credit stablecoin product, cross-border remittance, network verification of a stablecoin payment exchange, and hardware-wallet card services. The MOU exists because that PoC produced a working contract design Shinhan now wants to commercialize.
Korea’s stablecoin race is crowded
Shinhan is moving inside a wider scrum. Eight of South Korea’s largest banks, including Shinhan Bank, KB Kookmin, Woori, Nonghyup, IBK, Suhyup, Citibank Korea, and SC First Bank, are preparing a joint venture to issue a won-pegged stablecoin under a bank-consortium model, according to CoinDoo. Nine Korean card issuers are running stablecoin pilots in parallel.
The competitive pressure is straightforward. Whichever issuer reaches production first locks in the merchant integrations and the consumer-facing wallet experience that competitors will have to dislodge. Shinhan’s choice of Solana, rather than Ethereum or a domestic permissioned chain, is a bet that public-chain throughput and fees can handle Korean card volumes once regulation lands.
Regulatory clock
The MOU is explicitly conditional on Korean rules. South Korea is in the final stage of finalizing the Digital Asset Basic Act, the framework expected to replace existing virtual-asset terminology and formalize stablecoin issuance rules. Until that law passes, none of Shinhan’s PoC work can move to live consumer rails.
The political signal is consistent. Korean financial regulators have moved from a hostile crypto stance in 2022 toward an explicit “won-stablecoin” industrial policy under the current administration, and major card issuers are racing to be in market on day one. The MOU lets Shinhan bank technical readiness now and flip the switch when the Basic Act takes effect.
What comes next
Shinhan and the Solana Foundation said the next phase is testnet simulation of customer-to-merchant flows with the partners already lined up from the PoC. Watch for a Solana mainnet pilot announcement once the Digital Asset Basic Act is enacted, which Korean lawmakers have signaled will come in 2026. A formal product launch would put stablecoin settlement on a card used by roughly half the country.
For Solana, the deal is a strategic foothold in a high-volume consumer market with deep card penetration. For Shinhan’s competitors at KB Kookmin, Hyundai, and Samsung Card, it raises the cost of waiting.
Frequently asked questions
What is a memorandum of understanding in this context?
A memorandum of understanding is a non-binding agreement that sets out the scope and intent of a partnership before the parties sign full commercial contracts. In this case, the MOU formalizes Shinhan Card and the Solana Foundation’s commitment to commercialize the stablecoin payment work they prototyped, but live deployment still depends on Korean regulatory approval and final commercial terms.
Why is Shinhan Card building on Solana rather than Ethereum?
Solana offers higher transaction throughput and lower per-transaction fees than Ethereum’s main chain, which matters for retail card volumes where each swipe must settle quickly and cheaply. Shinhan’s PoC also tested cross-border remittance flows, where Solana’s sub-second finality and stablecoin liquidity on networks like USDC and PYUSD give it a practical edge for payment use cases.
When could Korean consumers actually use Shinhan stablecoin cards?
Live consumer use depends on passage of the Digital Asset Basic Act, which Korean lawmakers are working to finalize. Shinhan can run testnet simulations and finalize technical integrations now, but production launch will follow the regulatory timeline rather than lead it. A 2026 commercial pilot is the most likely path if the Basic Act passes on schedule.
