payment

According to South Korean media reports, the Bank of Korea participated in the real transaction testing of the global payment settlement project "Agora Project" led by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), successfully completing transactions using tokenized reserve funds.A total of 28 institutions participated in this test, including the Bank of Korea, central banks from various countries, and private financial institutions, covering six currencies: Korean won, US dollar, euro, British pound, Swiss franc, and Japanese yen. Domestic participating institutions in South Korea include KB Kookmin Bank, NongHyup Bank, Shinhan Bank, Woori Bank, and Hana Bank. The participating institutions conducted real transaction tests valued at approximately 800,000 Swiss francs, covering multiple currencies and testing 17 different transaction scenarios. The Bank of Korea stated, "In the future, the Agora Project plans to conduct more real transaction tests by identifying transaction types and scenarios not covered in this test."

Samsung SDS stated in its earnings call that its strategic investment in the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Dunamu is a "strategic layout for entering the digital asset infrastructure business." Both parties are discussing cooperation on stablecoin infrastructure, next-generation AI payments, and virtual asset financial system integration (SI). Samsung SDS President Lee Joon-hee mentioned that they will combine Dunamu's blockchain operation experience with Samsung SDS's capabilities in IT services, AI, cloud computing, and security to strengthen the digital financial infrastructure business.The earnings report disclosed on the same day showed that Samsung SDS's revenue for the second quarter was 3.7178 trillion won (approximately 2.6 billion USD), a year-on-year increase of 5.9%; operating profit was 231.8 billion won (approximately 160 million USD), a year-on-year increase of 0.7%. Among them, the cloud computing business revenue was 779.4 billion won, a year-on-year increase of 17%, with external cloud computing business revenue surging 75% year-on-year. The company plans to expand its AI infrastructure from the current 110MW to 230MW by 2029, and further expand to over 800MW by 2031. Samsung SDS previously announced an investment of approximately 20 billion won in Dunamu in May 2024.

The "China Business Journal" issued a statement saying: "Recently, our company discovered that illegal individuals are impersonating 'China Business Journal' and sending emails to some companies through non-official company email accounts, falsely claiming to have obtained significant negative information about the companies through so-called 'undercover investigations,' and threatening that if financial compensation (in Bitcoin) is not paid, the related 'undercover articles' will be published."The "China Business Journal" stated that all its news reports strictly comply with national laws and regulations, and interviews and communications are conducted through official channels. Such behavior is suspected of fraud and has been closely monitored, with evidence collected, and all rights to pursue legal responsibility are reserved. The statement reminds relevant companies to remain vigilant; if they receive such impersonated emails, they should not pay any financial compensation, and should immediately preserve all evidence and report to the local public security authorities.

According to The Block, MoonPay has launched the AI payment tool PayBox, allowing users to integrate it with ChatGPT or Claude, enabling the AI assistant to directly prepare payment transactions for booking flights, restaurants, or online shopping. Users can choose to require a passkey approval for each transaction or set a limit for the AI to complete transactions autonomously.PayBox integrates cryptocurrency wallets with payment cards, supporting cross-chain transactions based on the x402 smart entity payment standard. It initially supports Solana and EVM-compatible chains, including Ethereum, Hyperliquid, Tempo, Base, Robinhood Chain, Arbitrum, and Polygon, with plans to support more AI platforms and DeFi features, such as token exchanges and perpetual contract trading, within the next month.MoonPay states that wallet private keys are protected through multi-party computation (MPC) and trusted execution environments (TEE), ensuring that no single party (including MoonPay or the AI assistant itself) can independently access the complete private key or sign transactions; payment card information is processed and stored, allowing the AI entity to complete purchases without accessing the underlying card details; this system is built on the key management infrastructure acquired by MoonPay earlier this year from Sodot.

According to Cointelegraph, the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has released a policy research report titled "Stablecoin Sprint," gathering opinions from industry participants such as banks, payment companies, and stablecoin issuers.The report points out that stablecoins have recently shown significant advantages in the field of cross-border payments, especially providing substantial assistance to emerging markets with limited access to US dollar channels; however, in the domestic retail payment scenario in the UK, the existing payment systems are already relatively fast and inexpensive, leading to a lack of motivation for consumers to switch, and the adoption speed is expected to lag behind. The findings of the above research have been incorporated into the final regulatory rules released by the FCA on June 30, which require that stablecoins issued in the UK must be fully backed by reserve assets and redeemable at face value.

Visa and the on-chain data analysis platform Artemis previously jointly released the report "Agentic Payments from the Ground Up," which quantifies the trends of AI agent payments based on real-time on-chain data. The report points out that intelligent commerce should be divided into macro transactions (AI agents completing bookings, subscriptions, etc., adapting to existing card systems) and micro payments (high-frequency small payments between machines, with individual transactions far below $1, which traditional payment structures struggle to support).The report focuses on two "machine-native payment" protocols: x402 (developed by Coinbase, Cloudflare, etc., launching in May 2025) with an adjusted transaction volume of approximately $15 million and 109.6 million transactions as of April 21, 2026, with 422,000 buyers and about 5,300 sellers, primarily concentrated on Base, Solana, and Polygon, settled in USDC; MPP (developed by Stripe and Tempo, with Visa's participation, launching in mid-March 2026) had a transaction volume of approximately $25,000 and 115,000 transactions within 33 days of launch, supporting both on-chain crypto payments and fiat settlements.The report believes that the leap in AI capabilities (with the release of Claude 4.5 and GPT Codex 5.2 in mid-2025) has created a demand for programmatic payments, combined with the decreasing costs of blockchain settlements, making micro payments in the range of 1 cent to 1 dollar economically viable for the first time. Currently, the boundaries between crypto-native protocols and card payment camps are gradually blurring, but agent payments still face trust challenges such as erroneous purchases, adversarial attacks, and liability attribution.

Rachel Busch has joined the stablecoin payment blockchain Tempo to lead communications. Previously, she served as Senior Manager of Corporate Communications at Circle, where she participated in telling the story of USDC and the internet financial system, and will continue to engage in the global stablecoin narrative.According to information from RootData, Tempo is a high-performance Layer 1 blockchain developed in collaboration between Stripe and Paradigm, aimed at payment scenarios, supporting mainstream stablecoins. It launched its mainnet in March 2026, having completed a $500 million Series A funding round in October 2025, with a valuation of $5 billion.

According to Cointelegraph, crypto-friendly bank-as-a-service provider Cross River will provide banking infrastructure for X Money, supporting peer-to-peer payments, FDIC-insured interest-bearing accounts, and Visa debit card services. Cross River's banking platform and payment channels will support X's "super app" strategy and are designed to scale with more financial products over time. X Money will enter limited testing in May 2025 and expand to external testing in March 2026. X has obtained money transfer licenses in over 40 states in the U.S. and is registered with FinCEN to support platform peer-to-peer payments. The announcement did not mention support for cryptocurrencies or stablecoins.

OneBullEx officially launched the OneBullEx Mastercard in July, further expanding the application of digital assets in everyday payment scenarios. Users can convert USD T in their accounts to USD balance on the card and make online and offline purchases in over 100 countries and regions that support Mastercard, while also supporting quick card issuance in minutes.With the product launch, OneBullEx simultaneously introduced a limited-time benefit event. From July 27 at 18:00 to August 23 at 18:00, users who recharge more than 100 USDT (excluding card issuance fees) within 7 days after opening the card and complete their first valid transaction can participate in the launch event.By launching the OneBullEx Mastercard, OneBullEx is further connecting AI smart trading, digital asset management, and global payment scenarios, promoting the extension of digital assets from trading tools to everyday financial applications, providing users with a more convenient and efficient digital asset usage experience.

American fast food chain Steak n Shake tweeted that Bitcoin payments will be counted towards its Bitcoin strategic reserves."Compared to credit cards, the savings on processing fees allow us to reinvest the funds into improving the quality of our products and services. The loyalty of Bitcoin users is unparalleled."

KB Kookmin Bank announced that it will launch a cross-border corporate payment service based on the Kinexys blockchain payment network under JPMorgan in August, becoming the first financial institution in South Korea to apply this network for import and export enterprise settlements.It is reported that the service will initially support USD remittances, covering 10 countries including the United States, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, and is expected to shorten the cross-time zone payment time with regions such as the United States and the Middle East.

According to a report by The Paper, the Intermediate People's Court of Xilin Gol League in Inner Mongolia upheld the original verdict in the second trial of the case involving Ma for illegal business operations. This case is part of a series of cases where the Sifang payment platform provided funding and payment settlement for gambling platforms. Some defendants in this case were accused of receiving commissions or rebates in the form of virtual currencies such as USDT.It was found that from May 24, 2022, to October 18, 2023, Ma and four others illegally collected and paid funds through third-party payment accounts, and received USDT virtual currency and bank card payments through virtual wallets. They settled amounts exceeding 2.95 billion yuan through 105 merchants of 10 third-party payment companies.Ultimately, the court determined that Ma was guilty of illegal business operations, sentencing him to four years and six months in prison and imposing a fine of 3 million yuan. The five individuals who turned themselves in have been sentenced to prison terms ranging from 3 to 6 years for illegal business operations.

The Shanghai Branch of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) has collaborated with ICBC Singapore Branch to successfully implement the country's first cross-border payment business between China and Singapore based on the digital renminbi cross-border settlement comprehensive service platform "Digital Currency Express" (CBETS). This transaction, involving nearly ten million yuan in import shipping fees, was fully paid using digital renminbi, with funds arriving in the Singapore recipient's account on the same day, achieving "zero time difference" and "high transparency" in cross-border fund transfers. The service targets subsidiaries of central enterprise group trade platforms that regularly need to procure iron ore from abroad and pay for shipping fees, with high frequency and large amounts of cross-border settlements."Digital Currency Express" is a cross-border settlement infrastructure built by the International Operation Center of Digital Renminbi under the guidance of the People's Bank of China's Digital Currency Research Institute. Overseas participants can access services through the Hong Kong access point "One Point Access", compatible with both centralized and blockchain systems, and the message standards comply with ISO20022. On June 16, 2026, the first batch of 26 financial institutions signed direct participant service agreements. This business marks a significant breakthrough for ICBC in leveraging the infrastructure of the International Operation Center of Digital Renminbi to establish an integrated cross-border clearing system for domestic and foreign branches, achieving comprehensive coverage of two-way digital renminbi payment and receipt services with Singapore and Laos.

Cryptocurrency payment infrastructure company Moonpay has supported payments from the U.S. card network Discover, allowing Discover Network cardholders to buy and sell cryptocurrencies through the Moonpay platform. Discover Network becomes the third major card brand supported by Moonpay in the U.S., alongside Visa and Mastercard. Moonpay stated that this support covers over 500 of its business partners, including wallets, exchanges, and applications. Moonpay also supports Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, Venmo, bank transfers, and regional payment channels. Founded in 2019, Moonpay serves over 30 million customers across 180 countries and holds a BitLicense from New York, a limited purpose trust license from New York, multi-state money transmission licenses in the U.S., and MiCA authorization in the European Union.

According to PR Newswire, stablecoin operator Notabene announced a strategic investment from Ripple, with the specific investment amount not disclosed. The two parties will collaborate on enterprise-level stablecoin payments, including the integration of Ripple's USD stablecoin RLUSD into Notabene Flow B2B stablecoin payment platform.They also plan to further expand the application of RLUSD in institutional payment networks, accelerating the adoption of compliant stablecoin infrastructure by banks, payment institutions, and fintech companies.

According to DigitalToday, the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA) and the Ministry of Science and ICT have launched the "Deposit Token Payment Infrastructure Expansion Project," which will extend the results of South Korea's CBDC pilot "Project Hangang" into the private payment sector.The project is overseen by the Financial Settlement Agency, with participation from 9 banks, 8 payment gateways, and 2 large demand-side entities, with a total budget of 9.6 billion KRW, aimed at reducing payment fees for small and micro merchants. The project utilizes existing payment systems rather than building new infrastructure, allowing users to complete payments through bank deposit token wallets without requiring merchants to change terminals.The government also plans to apply deposit tokens to a pilot for official travel expenses and explore a treasury fund management model linked with dBrain. Approximately 3 billion KRW of the total project budget will be invested in the development, operation, and promotion of small and medium-sized enterprises, startups, and IT companies, while participating banks will separately advance about 4.5 billion KRW in related businesses.

The important event in the field of financial technology and digital assets in Asia------Wiki Finance EXPO Hong Kong 2026 will be held in Hong Kong from July 23 to 24, 2026. This event will bring together global financial technology companies, digital asset platforms, and industry participants to discuss the development trends of financial technology and the construction of the digital asset ecosystem.As a stablecoin-driven global payment infrastructure platform, WasabiCard will participate in this exhibition to engage in in-depth exchanges with global partners and share innovative practices and implementation experiences of stablecoin payments in the globalization of enterprises.WasabiCard is committed to significantly enhancing global settlement and payment efficiency for enterprises through its core capabilities of global card issuance, stablecoin payments, cross-border fund distribution, and global remittance. Currently, the platform's services cover over 200 countries and regions worldwide, supporting more than 30 mainstream currencies; at the same time, it integrates a full-process compliance risk control system including KYB, KYC, KYT, and AML to build a safe, reliable, and efficient global funding chain for enterprises.Participating in Wiki Finance EXPO Hong Kong 2026 is not only an important opportunity for WasabiCard to engage in in-depth exchanges with global financial technology and digital asset industry partners but also an important opportunity to further expand global ecological cooperation and enhance brand influence. In the future, WasabiCard will continue to promote innovation in stablecoin payment infrastructure and explore new trends in the development of the global payment system together with industry partners.