South Korea’s Shinhan Bank to Launch Bitcoin Remittance Service

Rage Comment : Shinhan Bank is one of the largest financial institutions in South Korea. It recently announced its entry into the field of Bitcoin remittance services, competing with Korean Bitcoin remittance service providers such as Payphil, Hyphen, and Coinplug. The Philippines and China are the main destinations for remittance services. It has received investments from domestic distributed capital, Shinhan Data Systems, ICB, Bluepoint Partners, the Digital Currency Group, etc.

Translation: Annie_Xu

Shinhan Bank, one of South Korea’s largest financial institutions, recently announced that it will provide Bitcoin remittance services for the China-South Korea remittance corridor in December. This is the first time that a major bank has launched a Bitcoin value transfer system.

Shinhan Bank in Seoul, South Korea has 723 branches, more than 8,531 employees, and assets of more than 285 trillion won, equivalent to 251 billion U.S. dollars. It has deployed 140 networks in 19 countries around the world. The bank has won several awards in the Asian banking industry, including the Best Retail Bank Award last year.

The new remittance service is powered by Streami, a provider of blockchain remittance middleware and infrastructure for financial service providers. Streami transfers value across borders by transferring Bitcoin between authorized partners, saving clients time and money because Bitcoin remittances are fast and much cheaper than traditional remittance networks.

Last year, Streami CEO Junhaeng Lee founded the company with the goal of developing a remittance channel between China and South Korea; at the same time, it has been developing new remittance channels with other authorized partners.

In 2015, Streami emerged from Shinhan Bank's Future Lab incubator program and received a 500 million won investment from the bank, equivalent to US$437,637. Other investors include Shinhan Data Systems, ICB, Bluepoint Partners, the Digital Currency Group and Fenbushi Capital.

Junhaeng Lee

Junhaeng Lee says:

"Currently we only handle payment services for Shinhan Bank. We plan to add collection services as soon as possible. However, due to the progress of bank system integration and approval, this will take some time."

South Korea has an advantage in developing Bitcoin that is unmatched by other countries. In addition to several major Bitcoin exchanges, South Korea also has more than 17,000 ATMs and 24,000 convenience stores that can provide Bitcoin trading services.

The South Korean government seems to be taking notice of all the Bitcoin activity and recently announced that it will be issuing a blockchain-based digital currency in the next few years.

However, in order to make Bitcoin a legal means of payment, South Korea must first revise its currency regulations; the Financial Services Commission also recently announced that it will develop a digital currency system by 2017.

Prior to this, Streami would transfer funds to a Hong Kong Bitcoin exchange, and then pay the recipient in local fiat currency through a Chinese Bitcoin exchange.

“We do not rely on one or two exchanges, but rather use multiple regulated exchanges as remittance channels.”

South Korea has many channels for obtaining Bitcoin, a large number of local Filipino workers, and a high frequency of remittances, which has increased the status of Bitcoin remittances in South Korea. Payphil, Hyphen, and Coinplug are all competitors in South Korea's Bitcoin remittance business, and have been providing remittance services between the Philippines and South Korea for a long time. They all have their own service objects and are also competitors for Shinhan Bank's remittance business in the future.

Meanwhile, Philippine startups Bloom Solutions, Rebit, and Sentbe are the receiving banks that connect with Korean banks. According to news in September, Bitcoin remittance services account for 20% of the remittance channel between South Korea and the Philippines.