"Stablecoins should be easy for anyone to use"—Kakao accelerates ecosystem development

[Financial News] The ultimate goal of Korea's digital asset industry is to create an environment in which won-denominated stablecoins can be used easily, a participant said.
According to Kakao Group on the 29th, Kyunghee Son, executive vice president overseeing Kakao Pay's digital asset group, emphasized this point at Next Finance Korea, jointly hosted by Kakao Group and KB Kookmin Bank on the 28th at The Westin Seoul Parnas in Seoul's Gangnam District.
Son said, "Kakao Group has been reviewing the business potential of new ventures since last year. We are now at the stage of developing the technology needed to issue and distribute won-denominated stablecoins while identifying and validating actual use cases."
He added that digital assets have already expanded beyond investment assets centered on trading and custody into areas such as asset tokenization and stablecoin payments. Son noted, "New services can be implemented across the entire financial sector, including payments and remittances, settlement and clearing, custody and deposits, collateral and lending, and investment and capital markets."
Kakao Group has prepared its digital asset ecosystem across four stages: "issuance," for the stable issuance and redemption of stablecoins; "distribution infrastructure," the technical foundation through which issued stablecoins move; "user channels," the points of contact through which users access stablecoins; and "use cases," or actual applications.
The group has also conducted proofs of concept for various stablecoin-based technologies and use cases, including payments and remittances based on digital asset wallets and agentic payments. It has explored opportunities to apply the technology and business expertise of global partners such as x402 Foundation, Circle and Fireblocks in Korea.
Before Son's presentation, Yun Ho-young, CEO of KakaoBank and co-head of Kakao Group's joint stablecoin task force, delivered the opening keynote. He proposed three tasks for realizing the digital transformation of finance: promoting the distribution of won-denominated stablecoins, building digital asset-based payment and settlement infrastructure, and creating an ecosystem in which participants can coexist.
Kakao Group proposed forming a roundtable with various domestic and international financial institutions and companies to jointly expand the digital asset ecosystem, including stablecoins, and develop specific businesses. It is an open collaboration model available to all parties that can participate in stablecoin issuance and distribution and link stablecoins to capital markets, including banks and securities firms, fintech and platform companies, virtual asset service providers, and e-commerce and content companies.
In his closing keynote, Shin Won-geun, CEO of Kakao Pay and co-head of Kakao Group's joint stablecoin task force, emphasized, "Broad efforts spanning issuance and distribution, regulation and security are needed to avoid falling behind in the competition over next-generation financial infrastructure created by the convergence of AI and blockchain. Cooperation and participation by diverse stakeholders are therefore crucial."

[email protected] Kim Tae-il Reporter