Korean companies route $620 million of stablecoin payments through affiliates abroad

Spread over the 69 months from January 2021 to September 2026, Allium's $620 million comes to about $9 million a month, or roughly $108 million a year ^[15]. McKinsey put global business-to-business stablecoin payments at an annualized $226 billion in December 2025 ^[7], so an average Korean year is about 0.05% of that market ^[16]. The average spans nearly six years of growth. Globally, the payment rate more than doubled from 2024 to December 2025 ^[7], so if Korea tracked that curve, its current rate is above $108 million a year.

The dollars that would need to come home are small. The warning in the JoongAng Daily report concerns the networks and business relationships that form around offshore channels ^[18], or rather the foreign counterparties who choose the rail first. An African iron-ore exporter is reportedly asking a Korean manufacturer for payment in stablecoins pegged to the dollar ^[20]. In Russia and Latin America, buyers of used cars and home appliances from Korea are reportedly paying that way already ^[20].

The conglomerates are running tests abroad and say so. Hyundai Motor America's Mexico transfer took about one thirty-fourth of the time of the four-hour bank route ^[17]. A September World Trade Organization report puts US-Mexico stablecoin remittance fees under 1%, against an average above 6% through traditional channels ^[1]. On $20,000, that is under $200 instead of more than $1,200 ^[14]. Those are remittance averages, and the JoongAng Daily account does not say what Hyundai paid. "With the regulatory framework in Korea not yet clear, we're testing the system abroad and plan to adopt it once a legal framework is established in Korea," a Hyundai Card representative said ^[6]. Until then, Hyundai Card's next tests use European affiliates and partnerships with Circle and Visa ^[5], and the conversion into and out of stablecoins happens in affiliates outside Korea ^[3].

If the Financial Services Commission's bill ^[11] gives operating companies direct access to stablecoins, pilots of this kind come home, as the Hyundai Card representative said they would. If corporate access stays close to today's limits, with last year's promised opening still short of listed companies ^[10], the affiliates become the permanent route for the large firms too. I think the likeliest outcome sits between the two: the conglomerates come home and the small exporters stay with their Hong Kong partners ^[19].

The small-firm route exists for a reason a stablecoin statute does not address on its own. "The problem is particularly acute for small businesses, which can struggle to meet banks' requirements for cross-border payments," said Kim Hyoung-joong, director of the cryptocurrency research center at Kookmin University ^[8]. Those requirements can include transaction documentation and foreign-exchange procedures ^[9]. If the domestic regime puts stablecoin conversion behind the same bank paperwork, a Hong Kong partner stays the easier choice for an exporter whose buyer has already asked to pay in stablecoins.

Beyond a handful of pilots, Korean companies have largely struggled to move into real-world use while direct corporate access stays restricted ^[12]. Posco International is one of the exceptions, developing blockchain-based cross-border remittances with Hana Financial Group and Dunamu ^[13]. If that project, or the Act itself, lets a small exporter settle without bank-style foreign-exchange paperwork, the Hong Kong flow has less reason to stay and the reshoring warning overstates the problem.