KB Kookmin Bank plans blockchain cross-border payments service next month

South Korea’s biggest bank is about to route corporate dollars through blockchain rails. KB Kookmin Bank, a subsidiary of KB Financial Group, is set to launch a blockchain-based cross-border USD payment service in August 2026, built on JPMorgan’s Kinexys platform. The move makes KB Kookmin the first South Korean financial institution to use Kinexys for live corporate payments. What the service actually does The new offering targets import and export businesses. At launch, the service will support USD remittances to ten countries: the United States, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, India, Thailand, Qatar, the UAE, Bahrain, South Africa, and South Korea itself. Clients will be able to access the service through KB Kookmin’s Korean branches and its Singapore office. Traditional cross-border payments, typically routed through SWIFT, can take days to settle and involve multiple correspondent banks. Kinexys, formerly known as Onyx, is a permissioned blockchain network designed specifically for institutional payments, tokenization, and digital asset settlements. It operates 24/7 with real-time settlement capabilities using tokenized deposits. The platform has processed a cumulative transaction vo...