Over the past two decades, digital payment systems have fundamentally changed consumption. Rapid technological progress means a smartphone can handle most transport, shopping and travel transactions, bringing unprecedented convenience and making a nearly cashless society a reality.
Yet structural limits remain: financial infrastructure is built on national systems and complex settlement arrangements involving multiple companies and institutions. This explains currency conversion and card network fees, and settlements taking days, when using cards abroad.
Credit cards, debit cards and mobile payments run on these digital systems. Payment appears instant to consumers, but card issuers, payment gateways and banks approve and settle transactions through multiple layers. Digital payments have spread without fundamentally changing the infrastructure.
Most everyday card and mobile transactions use digital payment systems. Although they appear immediate, they actually involve a multilayer process in which issuers, payment gateways and banks sequentially approve and settle each transaction.
Global finance is looking to blockchain payments to address these limits. Distributed networks verify transactions in real time, potentially reducing intermediaries and settlement delays. Stablecoins linked to fiat currencies are particularly suitable for payment compared with volatile crypto assets, driving rapid market growth.
Global card companies see stablecoins as next-generation infrastructure and are competing to build ecosystems. Mastercard recently launched its Crypto Partner Program for blockchain payment and settlement collaboration, while Visa announced plans to expand stablecoin-based card issuance to more than 100 countries.
Korea is also exploring practical stablecoin payments. Its mature card infrastructure and high digital finance adoption, alongside discussions of won-based stablecoins and digital asset regulation, are encouraging a view of stablecoins as new financial infrastructure. Our recent Binance Pay partnership to build a dollar-stablecoin payment environment for visitors to Korea follows this trend.
If the internet removed information borders, blockchain shows the potential to remove financial borders. Payments may evolve beyond faster transfers into infrastructure where borders lose meaning. Today's changes may mark the beginning of that major transition.
Related coverage: Herald Business