Kyobo Life, SBI complete Korea-Japan stablecoin test

Kyobo Life Insurance and Japan’s SBI Group have completed a cross-border pilot that tested direct exchange between yen- and won-denominated stablecoin representations without converting funds through the U.S. dollar. Summary Kyobo Life and SBI tested direct yen-won stablecoin exchange without routing transactions through U.S. dollars. The Canton Network test environment handled institutional transfer, foreign exchange, settlement, tracking, and reconciliation processes. Test tokens represented yen and won stablecoins, while no institutional funds changed hands during testing. Kyobo Life called the project South Korea’s first cross-border institutional stablecoin test by an insurer. Both companies plan further work linking digital asset exchange, settlement, and asset management between markets. Yonhap, citing Kyobo Life on Sept. 17, reported that the project had run since July with SBI Digital Practice and used the Canton Network test environment to model institutional fund transfer, foreign exchange and settlement between Japan and South Korea. No actual institutional money or live stablecoins moved during the demonstration. 교보생명·SBI, 엔화·원화 스테이블코인 직접 환전 실증https://t.co/xngKOZ7DSF — 상혁 Jaden Park (@fkemgod) September 17, 2026 You might also like: Ripple and Kyobo Life partner to modernize bond markets in South Korea Kyobo Life tested yen-won exchange without a dollar leg The pilot modeled a transaction route in which a yen-denominated stablecoin could be exchanged directly for a won-denominated stablecoin. Kyobo Life said the structure avoided an intermediate conversion from yen into U.S. dollars and then from dollars into won. The companies used test tokens inside Canton Network instead of production stablecoins. Reporting from Financial News and TokenPost confirmed that the exercise did not transfer real stablecoins or institutional funds, limiting the result to a technical and operational demonstration. Kyobo Life said the test covered the complete sequence of moving institutional funds across borders, including exchange and settlement. The insurer described it as the first such end-to-end stablecoin test conducted by a South Korean insurance company. That characterization comes from Kyobo Life and has not been presented as a finding by a regulator. During the exercise, the companies examined how transaction information could be checked and tracked in real time. They tested procedures for handling digital assets arriving from overseas and processing related settlement activity inside South Korea. Kyobo Life said the test showed the “technical feasibility and efficiency” of stablecoin-based institutional transfers. The company said fewer currency-conversion steps could reduce processing time and transaction costs, though it did not publish comparative figures quantifying those savings. Canton Network provided the institutional test environment The pilot ran on Canton Network, a blockchain infrastructure designed for regulated financial institutions that need configurable privacy and permission controls when exchanging assets and settlement information. SBI Digital Practice has made Canton a central part of its institutional blockchain strategy.