Stablecoins could save South Korean merchants up to $3.8 billion a year, budget office says
South Korea's parliamentary budget office suggests that adopting domestic stablecoins could save merchants billions in transaction fees. However, regulators remain cautious, citing risks to financial stability and the potential for stablecoins to impact local currency markets.
Why it matters
It highlights the tension between financial innovation and the need for regulatory oversight in the emerging digital asset economy.
The parliamentary budget office’s analysis estimated the savings under different assumptions about how much card spending moves to stablecoin payments and the fees those systems charge.
Stablecoins are tokens designed to track the value of assets such as national currencies. A won-backed coin could give South Korean businesses a domestic alternative to a market dominated by dollar-linked stablecoins, which accounted for 98.8% of the $312.3 billion global stablecoin market in July, the office said.
South Korea is still developing the rules that would govern that market. Its first major crypto investor protection law took effect in July 2024 , covering customer assets and unfair trading.
Who gets to issue those tokens has been a central dispute. Earlier negotiations split the Bank of Korea and the Financial Services Commission, with the former favoring issuers controlled by banks with at least 51% ownership, while the latter warned that restrictions could hinder innovation.
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