Kyobo Life Insurance, SBI Conduct First Japan-Korea Stablecoin Proof of Concept in Insurance Industry

[Financial News] Kyobo Life Insurance has validated a structure for transferring institutional funds between the Japanese yen and the Korean won without routing the funds through the U.S. dollar, using stablecoins with Japan’s SBI Group. It is the first case in Korea’s insurance industry to validate the entire process of cross-border institutional fund transfers, currency conversion and settlement.
Kyobo Life Insurance announced on the 17th that it had completed the Japan-Korea Stablecoin-Based Cross-Border Proof-of-Concept Project, conducted with SBI Digital Practice since July.
The proof of concept was conducted in a test environment on The Canton Network, a blockchain designed for financial institutions. Using test tokens, the companies validated a method for transferring institutional funds by directly converting a yen-denominated stablecoin into a won-denominated stablecoin, without following the conventional process of converting yen into U.S. dollars and then into won.
The companies confirmed that this approach could reduce currency-conversion steps in cross-border fund transfers and lower transaction times and costs. They also verified the real-time monitoring and tracking of transaction information, as well as how digital assets transferred from overseas and settlement funds could be processed domestically.
Kyobo Life Insurance expects to use the results of the proof of concept to improve the efficiency of overseas financial transactions and enhance the transparency of fund flows once the relevant regulations and financial infrastructure are established.
The companies plan to expand their cooperation in Web3 finance, including digital-asset conversion and links to asset management between Japan and South Korea, as well as the development of new business models.

[email protected] Hong Ye-ji Reporter