Visa lands its second South Korean stablecoin deal in a week

Visa has partnered with Dunamu, the parent company of South Korean crypto exchange Upbit, to explore stablecoin payments, cross-border remittances, and AI-powered commerce, Cointelegraph reported. The deal lands two days after Visa signed a similar agreement with Shinhan, one of Korea's largest banks.

Dunamu and Visa plan to combine Dunamu's digital asset technology with Visa's global payments network to explore payment, remittance, and settlement services across major markets, according to a Friday announcement from Dunamu.

The timing puts Visa on both sides of Korea's financial system at once. Shinhan is a conventional bank building stablecoin infrastructure to protect its existing card and payments business. Dunamu runs Upbit, the exchange where much of Korea's crypto trading already happens. Visa now has a foothold with the institution guarding the old rails and the platform building the new ones.

Part of what Dunamu and Visa are weighing is Open Standard's proposed Open USD (OUSD), a dollar-backed stablecoin unveiled in June that Open Standard says more than 140 companies have signed up to use, including Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Coinbase, and BlackRock. Dunamu said OUSD is only one of several stablecoin projects under review and that it hasn't committed to a specific one for the Visa partnership. The company drew a careful line around its own role here: Upbit, the exchange itself, said in July it was not participating in OUSD's issuance, even after Dunamu, its parent, was named among the businesses involved in the initiative. The Visa deal runs through Dunamu, not Upbit, and that distinction appears to matter to the company.

• Aug 26: Visa signs a stablecoin infrastructure deal with Shinhan Financial Group, a traditional bank
• Aug 28: Visa signs a separate deal with Dunamu, Upbit's parent, a crypto exchange operator
• OUSD: dollar-backed stablecoin from Open Standard, 140+ companies signed up including Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Coinbase, BlackRock
• Upbit itself said in July it isn't participating in OUSD's issuance, distinct from parent Dunamu's role
• New territory: agentic commerce, where AI agents pay on a user's behalf

The two companies will also explore agentic commerce, where AI agents search for products and services and complete purchases on a user's behalf, and look at how stablecoin payment and settlement infrastructure could support that kind of autonomous buying.

Visa's stablecoin footprint now extends well past Korea. It signed on as a validator for Circle's Arc network earlier this month alongside Mastercard and BlackRock, and the Dunamu and Shinhan deals suggest the company is treating Korea as a market worth locking down from more than one angle at once.

Nothing here should be taken as financial advice — just information to consider.