Kyobo Life Teams Up With Circle, SBI and BDACS on Stablecoin, RWA Commercialization

Kyobo Life Insurance is moving to commercialize stablecoins and real-world assets, or RWAs, in financial services through partnerships with Circle, Japan's SBI Holdings and BDACS.

Kyobo Life said on October 2 that it held the "Bridging Finance Onchain" event at the Four Seasons Hotel in Seoul on October 1 with SBI Holdings, Circle and BDACS to discuss cooperation in digital finance.

The companies discussed proof-of-concept work for blockchain-based financial services and ways to apply stablecoins and asset tokenization to traditional financial businesses such as insurance and asset management. Kyobo Life is also reviewing the creation of an investment and operating framework to use digital assets in actual financial operations.

SBI Holdings introduced its yen-denominated stablecoin JPYSC and Strium, a blockchain designed for financial services. Circle presented Circle StableFX, its institutional stablecoin payment and foreign-exchange infrastructure. BDACS demonstrated exchange and payment processes using KRW1 and USDC.

Participants agreed that regulatory standards, internal controls, consumer and investor protection, and payment and settlement infrastructure must be established together to expand on-chain finance into actual financial services.

"Traditional finance and on-chain finance need to develop together," Park Jin-ho, a vice president at Kyobo Life, said. He added that he hopes the partnership will serve as a starting point for turning technical discussions into actual business.

Kyobo Life said it plans to use the discussions as a springboard to expand cooperation with domestic and overseas financial and digital-asset companies and to flesh out proof-of-concept work and new business opportunities related to stablecoins and RWAs.