One of South Korea’s largest credit card providers, Shinhan Card, signed a memorandum of understanding with the Solana Foundation to test stablecoin payment technology and explore the use of non-custodial wallets through a more advanced follow-on proof of concept (PoC).
Following a joint pilot project completed at the beginning of April, the new partnership will conduct a more “advanced” PoC to explore the commercial feasibility of stablecoin payments for merchants and customers seeking an improved payment experience, Shinhan Card announced on Thursday.
The partnership will also explore developing a “hybrid financial model” that combines traditional finance (TradFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi) infrastructure.
The move signals that South Korea’s second-largest credit card provider is exploring the implementation of blockchain technology to improve retail merchant payment interactions.
Shinhan Card is South Korea’s second-largest credit card issuer with a 16.9% market share, which was overtaken by Samsung Card’s 17.02% market share for the top spot in March, KED Global reported.
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Shinhan Card to develop smart contract-based DeFi services
Shinhan Card said that the partnership’s ultimate goal is to explore DeFi-linked services of its own, which implement blockchain oracles, a technology used to connect information in offchain and onchain environments.
The credit card giant said it will also explore the “execution stability” of smart contracts, which are self-executing, digital agreements with terms written in code, used to disintermediate transactions.
On April 9, Shinhan Card said it completed a successful PoC with the Solana Foundation on six key areas, including blockchain-based peer-to-peer payments, digital asset integrated payment infrastructure, stablecoin-based check and credit hybrid products, stablecoin-based cross-border remittances and settlement, stablecoin payments and IC chip-based card payment services for crypto wallets.
Shinhan said the earlier PoC could serve as a blueprint for bridging the existing fiat-based payment systems with the digital asset ecosystem to discover new business models that can “increase customer convenience in the payment and settlement areas” and strengthen its competitiveness in “next-generation financial markets.”
Other large stablecoin issuers exploring stablecoins for improved payments and settlement include Visa, Mastercard and BC Card.
Visa is among the more advanced examples, having launched USD Coin (USDC) settlement services for some US-based financial institutions on the Solana blockchain in December 2025.
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