Web3 Payments: Shinhan–SBI Yen-Stablecoin Pilot - OneSafe

On October 21, 2026, Shinhan Card—one of South Korea's major card issuers—announced the joint proof of concept with two units of Japan's SBI Group. The partners are SBI VC Trade, a licensed Japanese digital-asset exchange, and blockchain specialist SBI XDC Network APAC. According to Bloomingbit's report, the three companies will evaluate the commercial viability of a Web3-based global payments infrastructure across three concrete tracks: card payments, wallet-to-wallet transfers and payments, and cross-border trade settlement.

Shinhan Card framed the move as a direct effort to "secure stablecoin payment technology and explore the expansion of overseas payment and settlement services," targeting the growing global digital-payments market. The consortium structure—a card issuer, a regulated exchange, and a blockchain network operator—gives the pilot a practical, multi-party settlement context that distinguishes it from earlier single-issuer yen-stablecoin experiments.

Web3 payments evolution

Until now, yen stablecoins have been a niche within a niche. Japan's regulatory framework for trust-company-issued stablecoins took effect in 2023, and a handful of yen-pegged tokens exist, but none has achieved the volume or payment network integration that would make them a realistic settlement rail for international businesses. The Shinhan–SBI pilot changes the conversation because it puts a card-network-adjacent issuer and a licensed exchange at the center of the test.

Web3 refers to internet protocols built on decentralized, public blockchains that enable peer-to-peer value transfer, smart contracts, and user custody of assets. Unlike Web2, where user data and funds sit inside closed platforms, Web3 gives participants control over their own addresses and private keys. For payments, this architecture means users can send and receive value without routing through a series of proprietary ledgers—potential for programmable, always-on, and lower-fee transactions.

Cross-border settlement challenge

Traditional cross-border payments bounce through multiple correspondent banks, each adding a layer of fees, time (often 1-3 business days), and opacity. A blockchain-based cross-border payment replaces that chain with a single on-chain transfer: a stablecoin issued on a public or permissioned blockchain moves directly from the sender's wallet to the recipient's wallet. Settlement occurs as soon as the block is finalized—typically minutes.

For finance leads at Web3 startups and DAOs that regularly deal with cross-border payments, the pilot signals that yen-stablecoin settlement is moving from theoretical to testable. A successful proof of concept could eventually reduce dependence on the slow, multi-intermediary correspondent banking chains that still dominate yen-denominated trade settlement.

Three test tracks

The proof of concept covers three distinct flows: card payments, wallet-to-wallet transfers, and cross-border trade settlement. Shinhan Card's involvement in the card-payments track is especially notable because it suggests the company is thinking beyond a closed-loop app. If a card transaction can settle in a stablecoin, the underlying payment could be initiated at any point-of-sale that accepts Shinhan cards, with the yen-stablecoin acting as the settlement asset behind the scenes.

The pilot explicitly targets commercial viability, meaning Shinhan and SBI will be looking at unit economics, operational scalability, and regulatory acceptance across jurisdictions. Many pilots stop at technical feasibility; this one goes further to determine whether it's worth building a production-grade stablecoin settlement rail.

The next step for finance teams is to document exactly how their organization sends and receives payments denominated in Japanese yen today. Identifying each intermediary, average settlement time, and total cost per transaction will help determine whether a stablecoin settlement path could cut that chain by even two hops—once the pilot proves that stablecoin-to-fiat off-ramps in Japan are fast and compliant.