Gwangju Bank and Toss Test Stablecoin QR Payments in South Korea

Gwangju Bank has successfully completed a proof of concept for stablecoin-based QR code payments in collaboration with Seoul-based superapp Toss. The pilot linked the bank's mobile app, the Toss app, and Toss Place payment terminals to demonstrate a seamless payment flow.

The demonstrated transaction works as follows: customers select stablecoin payment in the Gwangju Bank app, which opens the QR scanner in the Toss app. Users then scan the QR code displayed on the merchant's payment terminal, verify the payment amount, and complete the transaction. Stablecoins transfer from the customer's wallet to the merchant's wallet, with payment results visible in the bank app.

The pilot used a virtual merchant, and no actual customer data or assets were involved in the testing phase.

Both organizations plan to streamline the payment process by reducing the number of steps customers must take. They are also discussing a second phase of testing that would involve actual merchants in the Jeonnam and Gwangju regions.

The PoC conducted with Toss is significant in that it established a technological foundation to proactively respond to the digital asset payment environment and verified the user experience from a customer perspective

Gwangju Bank Vice President Byun Mi-Kyung emphasized the importance of the pilot.

Gwangju Bank is a regional South Korean financial institution and a subsidiary of JB Financial Group. Founded in 1968, the bank reported total assets of approximately KRW 34.4 trillion ($54 billion) at year-end 2025. It operates branches in Gwangju, Jeonnam, Seoul, Incheon, and Seongnam.

Toss began as a money transfer service in 2015 and has grown into one of Korea's leading superapps with 30 million users. The platform offers an ecosystem of more than 100 financial management and e-commerce services, along with more than 10,000 mini apps through its Apps in Toss platform, which runs within the Toss app.

The Canton Foundation has announced a strategic partnership with Seoul-based IT services provider LG CNS to expand institutional adoption of the Canton Network in Korea. Together, they will develop technical capabilities to support Canton implementation and help build a broader technical partner ecosystem.

Korea is a critical market for institutional adoption of Canton in Asia. This partnership is about building the market together, combining Canton's growing institutional ecosystem with LG CNS's deep technology capabilities and relationships across the Korean financial sector

Canton Foundation Head of APAC Thomas Chou explained the partnership's strategic importance.

The Canton Network is a public, permissionless blockchain designed specifically for institutional finance, though individual applications can define their own permission requirements. Announced in 2023, the network's mainnet went live in July 2024.

Canton operates as a modular blockchain ecosystem in which participating institutions maintain their own ledgers while connecting with others via a shared synchronization layer. The network's architecture enables:

• Real-time secure synchronization and settlement
• Atomic transactions that ensure complex exchanges involving multiple parties complete in full or not at all
• Privacy protection for sensitive financial information

LG CNS has been a major player in Korea's blockchain-based financial industry since 2015. The company has built infrastructure for the issuance, distribution, settlement, and trading of digital assets including CBDCs, tokenized deposits, security tokens, and stablecoins. LG CNS has also built and operated core systems for major commercial banks, insurers, credit card companies, and securities firms for more than 30 years.

In response to a series of suspected, AI-assisted cyberattacks and data leaks that struck at least seven major South Korean financial institutions in recent weeks, the Korea Fintech Industry Association brought fintech firms and electronic payment providers together this week to discuss coordinated data-sharing and early risk checks.

Association Chairman Kim Jong-hyun said recent cyber incidents should not be viewed as problems affecting individual companies alone, but as threats to public confidence in financial services as a whole. He emphasized the need for coordinated information-sharing and greater cooperation with regulators to strengthen security, as well as building systems that enable teams to identify risks early and respond proactively.

The discussion also covered the Financial Supervisory Service's IT security self-inspection checklist, which the country's Financial Services Commission has asked firms to use. The 12-point checklist addresses threat intelligence and blocklists, system abnormality detection, access controls and vulnerabilities, system hardening, and incident investigation.