MoonPay has launched MoonPay Korea as it looks to make South Korea a base for its wider Asian operations. The company is working with local partners on won-backed stablecoins, cross-border payments, remittances and digital asset infrastructure.
According to Maeil Business Newspaper, MoonPay unveiled the strategy at an official launch event in Seoul on Sept. 29. The company highlighted its work with Woori Bank, KB Financial Group, KakaoBank and fintech firm Finger. MoonPay plans to test the services with these Korean partners before linking them to its global payments and digital asset network.
MoonPay co-founder and Asia Pacific CEO Lee Boo-gun said South Korea has strong demand for virtual assets alongside advanced digital payment infrastructure. He said this combination creates opportunities to develop new financial services while improving existing payment systems.
“Korea has an opportunity to develop new financial services and increase the efficiency of existing services because it has both demand for virtual assets and digital payment infrastructure,” Lee said.
MoonPay is building its Korean operations around partnerships between financial firms and digital platforms, cross-border fund transfers and the expansion of Korea-developed services into other Asian markets.
A key part of the plan is to create overseas distribution channels for Korean won stablecoins, should such assets be issued under the country’s evolving regulatory framework.
MoonPay Korea Targets Overseas Use of Won Stablecoins
MoonPay expects its global network to help Korean won stablecoins reach users beyond the country, including overseas Koreans, foreign students and international tourists.
Under the proposed model, users could purchase and hold won stablecoins overseas, convert them into other currencies or digital assets, and use them for payments and settlements.
Lee pointed to overseas remittances, payments made by foreigners in Korea, trade transactions and corporate payments as potential use cases.
“It is also an important task to secure overseas distribution channels for the success of won stablecoins,” he said.
The plan comes as Korean financial firms continue testing several services that MoonPay aims to connect with its global network. As previously reported, KB Financial tested won stablecoin payments in May, including issuance, offline QR payments, merchant settlements and an overseas remittance to Vietnam.
In the Vietnam test, a won stablecoin was converted into a dollar stablecoin through on-chain liquidity before the funds were sent to a Vietnamese bank account. The transaction took less than three minutes, with reported fees coming in about 87% lower than those of a conventional SWIFT-based transfer.
KB is now one of the financial groups set to work directly with MoonPay. KB Kookmin Bank will assess on- and off-ramp infrastructure, wallet services, stablecoin issuance and distribution, along with overseas remittance and settlement services.
KB Kookmin Card will focus on payment services. The companies plan to test a model that allows foreign visitors to use digital assets, including stablecoins, at Korean merchants, while the proof-of-concept work will examine system connectivity, security, convenience and commercial viability.
MoonPay Targets Direct Connections to Korean Banking Systems
MoonPay has dubbed its implementation strategy “Full Stack Last Mile,” which aims to link its services directly to Korea’s existing financial infrastructure rather than limiting the company’s role to APIs and software development kits.
The system is designed to handle the final steps of transactions, including won deposits and withdrawals, payments, settlements, merchant payouts, refunds and error processing.
“We will not only provide APIs and SDKs, but also support the process of applying and operating products to the existing financial system,” Lee said.
MoonPay plans to obtain the licenses required for its Korean operations, including registration as a virtual asset service provider. Services that handle won deposits and withdrawals would also need to comply with local requirements, including real-name verified accounts.
Customer identification, payments, settlements and customer protection responsibilities will be shared between MoonPay and its Korean financial partners. The systems will then be adjusted to meet local security and operational standards.
Finger is expected to handle part of the technical integration between MoonPay and Korean financial institutions. MoonPay plans to link its wallet, conversion and payment APIs, along with wallet-as-a-service technology, to local bank and card systems.
The setup would follow Korean financial industry requirements for anti-money laundering controls, customer identification, unusual transaction monitoring, access management, security checks and responses to system failures.
MoonPay has also been developing similar institutional infrastructure outside South Korea. In May, the company launched MoonPay Trade as an execution platform for banks, fintech firms and enterprises, giving clients access to tokenized assets, stablecoin liquidity and decentralized finance across more than 200 blockchain networks.
Woori, KakaoBank Trial New Cross-Border Payment Models
Woori Bank will focus on integrating its won-based financial infrastructure with MoonPay’s global distribution and payments network.
If won stablecoins are issued, MoonPay plans to link its wallet and on- and off-ramp network so overseas Koreans, students and tourists can acquire, hold and exchange the assets from outside Korea.
The two companies also plan to test business-to-business payment services. Woori’s remittance infrastructure would be integrated with MoonPay’s digital asset network to explore overseas payments by Korean companies and payments sent into Korea by foreign businesses.
Woori will handle identity verification for services involving foreign users, while MoonPay is assessing how its authentication, conversion and payment technologies can be integrated into the process.
The bank already has ties to South Korea’s growing won stablecoin market. BDACS’ KRW1 stablecoin is backed 1:1 by Korean won held at Woori Bank, while the project recently adopted LayerZero infrastructure to enable transfers across multiple blockchain networks.
KakaoBank is working with MoonPay on a separate cross-border remittance model that aims to link a Korean remittance app with overseas bank accounts through a single transaction process.
In an example presented by MoonPay Korea strategy director Choi Han-kyul, KakaoBank would handle a student’s remittance request, screening, currency conversion and transfer in Korea. MoonPay would receive the digital assets overseas, convert them into US dollars and deposit the funds into a local US bank account.
“We aim to process within an hour,” Choi said.
KakaoBank is exploring services for trading, custody and swaps involving stablecoins denominated in currencies such as the Korean won, US dollar and Japanese yen. The partnership could later expand to other Kakao affiliates, including Kakao Pay.
KakaoBank and Kakao Pay have separately entered into agreements with Fireblocks to test stablecoin infrastructure, regulatory requirements, security systems and digital asset services in South Korea.
Korean Stablecoin Rules Remain Under Development
MoonPay is preparing its plans as South Korea works toward completing the second stage of its digital asset legislation.
The Financial Services Commission expects the review of the Digital Asset Framework Act to reach a National Assembly bill review subcommittee in November. Stablecoin rules remain under consideration, including who can issue won-denominated tokens and how those issuers should be regulated.
The Bank of Korea has supported an initial model led by regulated banks, saying won stablecoins could have implications for monetary policy, payment systems and overall financial stability.
MoonPay is developing its Korean operations while the country continues to work on those rules. The company said it has processed more than $120 billion in total transactions, serves over 32 million verified users and works with more than 1,500 partners. Its network covers more than 120 fiat currencies and 170 payment methods across over 180 service areas.
The company is expanding its institutional offering to include wallet and key management, custody, cross-chain transactions, over-the-counter trading, DeFi liquidity, as well as stablecoin issuance and payment services.
MoonPay said its tokenized fund infrastructure connects with more than 7,500 wallets and applications, enabling investors to subscribe to and redeem tokenized funds at any time using stablecoins.
At the Seoul event, MoonPay Chief Legal Officer Caroline Pham described the company as an “operating system for value” that supports funding, tokenization, trading and spending through services such as on- and off-ramps, virtual accounts, white-label stablecoin issuance, wallets, cross-chain transactions and settlement.
MoonPay also highlighted AI agent payments as another area of its business and showcased its PayBox payment infrastructure at the event. During the demonstration, a user asked an AI agent to search for a flight from Seoul to Singapore after reviewing an asset portfolio. The agent paid $0.10 for an external search service before providing the available flight and pricing details.
“If Click executed transactions in the 2000s and API executed transactions in the 2010s, now AI agents are entrusted with user authority to trade,” Pham said.
