Kyobo Life Group Expands Digital-Asset Push Across Insurance, Securities, Prepares for Regulatory Shift

Kyobo Life Group is expanding its digital-asset business across its financial units, centered on insurance and securities. The group plans to proactively test business models spanning on-chain finance, from premium payments and insurance benefit payouts to the issuance and distribution of real-world assets, or RWAs, and tokenized securities.

Park Jin-ho, a vice president at Kyobo Life Insurance, said at the "Bridging Finance Onchain" event held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Seoul on October 1 that the group views the shift to on-chain finance not as a simple technology trend, but as a mid- to long-term business task. The question now is no longer whether to participate in on-chain finance, but which financial functions should be moved on-chain, and when and how that transition should happen.

Kyobo Life is first preparing to introduce on-chain finance across two pillars: asset management and insurance. On the asset side, the company is examining ways to use new digital assets such as tokenized government bonds, funds and RWAs in its portfolio. On the customer side, it is testing ways to link premium collection and insurance benefit payments to on-chain infrastructure.

The insurer has already conducted 10 proof-of-concept projects with domestic and overseas partners. Those include purchases of overseas stocks and bonds using dollar stablecoins, the tokenization of real assets such as real estate and wine, and on-chain premium payments and death-benefit payouts.

Insurance is not a payments business, Park said, so accident verification, reviews of payout eligibility and customer-protection procedures are essential. Rather than move every function at once, the company plans to connect operations that can be tested first in stages.

Kyobo has chosen verification over observation. It plans to start with proof-of-concept work, move to pilots in live operating environments, and develop those efforts into business models once commercial viability is confirmed.

Kyobo Securities is focused on building an "asset layer" that creates digital assets to be offered to investors. Shin Hee-jin, a director at Kyobo Securities, described a securities firm's role in four areas: underwriting, brokerage, distribution and trust.

A securities firm must identify and structure assets, turn them into securities and connect them with investors, Shin said. It also has to handle liquidity, price discovery, disclosures, suitability checks and investor protection.

Kyobo Securities has also been conducting pilot projects across a range of digital assets since 2024. It has tested the securitization of new assets such as premium wine and concert intellectual property, while also verifying ways to tokenize traditional financial assets including money market funds and unlisted shares. The firm is also studying how tokenized MMFs could be used as on-chain cash equivalents, including as collateral for repurchase agreements, or repos, and as margin.

The biggest lesson from preparing those cases, Shin added, was that the company cannot afford to simply wait for regulation. It needs to be ready to respond immediately across those products once rules are in place and the market opens.

Kyobo Life Group plans to eventually connect its insurance and securities units to on-chain infrastructure and develop that into an operating financial business. Finance will not evolve by choosing between traditional finance and on-chain finance, Park said. The core issue is not which replaces the other, but how to connect the strengths of both.