KB Kookmin Bank is preparing to transform how money moves across continents. South Korea’s largest bank, with $552.76 billion in assets, is set to launch a blockchain-based cross-border payment service in August 2026. It has partnered with J.P. Morgan to utilize the Kinexys platform - an institutional infrastructure for payments and tokenization formerly known as Onyx.
The service opens transfer corridors to 10 countries in its initial phase: South Korea, the United States, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, India, Thailand, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and South Africa. Importer and exporter clients can access it through domestic branches as well as KB’s branch in Singapore.
Leveraging Legacy Infrastructure
Instead of building a system that competes with traditional networks, KB Kookmin chose the integration route. The Kinexys blockchain platform connects directly to SWIFT to handle near-instant transfers and 24/7 foreign exchange settlement. This decision makes KB Kookmin the first South Korean financial institution to bring Kinexys technology to importer and exporter businesses.
While the Kinexys network natively supports multiple currencies, KB Kookmin’s service will only handle US dollar transfers in its initial phase. Fee structures and transaction limits have not yet been disclosed. Meanwhile, J.P. Morgan expanded its platform in June to settle transfers in Australian dollars, Hong Kong dollars, Japanese yen, Chinese yuan, and Singapore dollars - bringing the total to eight currencies operating 24 hours a day.
Slashing Transfer Times to Minutes
KB Kookmin is not the first entity to pursue this efficiency. Qatar National Bank has been deploying Kinexys for corporate client transfers since 2025, cutting cross-border transfer times to minutes. Kinexys’s reach continues to expand; in May, J.P. Morgan teamed up with Mastercard, Ripple, and Ondo Finance to pilot a cross-border debt securities settlement system on the XRP Ledger.
For KB Kookmin, blockchain is becoming a daily operational tool. In June, the 28th-largest bank in Asia-Pacific issued a $100 million digital bond via HSBC’s Orion platform - cutting settlement time from five days to three days. At the same time, its KB Kookmin Card division is developing a system on the Avalanche network and OpenAsset to link stablecoins with conventional credit limits. The digital asset ecosystem, once on the industry’s fringes, is gradually oiling the wheels of banking from within.
Reported by crypto.news.
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