Chainlink teams up with 47 South Korean, European banks to speed up international money transfers
The alliance, called Project Pangea, plans to use stablecoins to settle multimillion-dollar currency trades between Europe and South Korea in near real time.
By Olivier Acuna|Edited by Sheldon Reback
Updated Jun 23, 2026, 4:15 p.m. Published Jun 23, 2026, 3:40 p.m.
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Summary
Blockchain infrastructure company Chainlink said it is joining a group of banks that collectively represent over $10 trillion in assets under management to unlock real-time, stablecoin-based cross-border payments for foreign-exchange trades within a year.
The coalition, called Project Pangea, aims to redefine the global FX markets, Niki Ariyasinghe, Chainlink’s vice president of Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, said in a video interview on Tuesday. In addition to Chainlink, the group includes Qivalis, a euro stablecoin consortium backed by 37 European banks, and UniKA, a Korean banking alliance representing more than 10 commercial banks.
The project aims to explore moving foreign-exchange settlement from a traditional 48-hour (T+2) timeline toward near-instant (T+0) settlement using regulated euro- and South Korean won-pegged stablecoins, or crypto tokens whose value is tied 1:1 to the underlying currency.
The initiative will evaluate whether the stablecoins can be exchanged through atomic payment-versus-payment (PvP) settlement, in which both sides of a currency trade settle simultaneously or not at all, thereby reducing counterparty and settlement risk.
The project goes beyond a tech experiment, Ariyasinghe said. Chainlink is drawing a line in the sand between theoretical “proofs-of-concept” and actual infrastructure.
“This is not just a POC,” Ariyasinghe said. “Everyone’s coming in with their eyes wide open. Appetite is very much about building real infrastructure … The target is live transactions within a legal, regulatory compliance framework within the next 12 months.”
The initiative is focusing on the trade corridor between Europe and South Korea, an economic artery that processes over $150 billion in goods and services annually, making it one of the world’s 15 largest trade routes. It also taps into regional trends: Industry data shows that 60% of all global stablecoin payments are happening in Asia.
“I completely agree with that stat,” Ariyasinghe said. “It gives people a good indication of where real demand is. In less developed financial ecosystems, demand is growing, but the infrastructure isn’t necessarily in place. These forms of tokenized cash are fulfilling a real need.”
Rather than forcing legacy financial institutions to overhaul their computer systems or buy cryptocurrency, Project Pangea intends to act as a middleware translator. Banks will trigger transactions using Swift—the global messaging network they have used since the 1970s—and Chainlink’s infrastructure will translate those commands into instant “atomic swaps” on a neutral, independent ledger called the Pangea L1 Network.
Project Pangea is designed to work with existing Swift and ISO 20022 banking standards, allowing traditional financial institutions to connect to blockchain-based settlement rails without replacing their payment infrastructure.
Some industry observers may view the project as a challenge to Ripple’s decade-long push into institutional cross-border settlement, but Chainlink insists its approach is collaborative rather than disruptive.
“I wouldn’t necessarily describe it as a rival,” Ariyasinghe noted. “We’re very much a technology provider. It’s less about creating a unified network from scratch. It’s about applying the technology, finding where that value is, and growing the network organically.”
Ultimately, the goal is to free up trapped capital and modernize international trade corridors.
“If I’m sending money to you and it’s lost in transit for quite some time, you don’t receive it, and that money isn’t able to be used,” Ariyasinghe said. “To reduce that time as much as possible, for customers to access that money absolutely as fast as possible, has to be a good thing.”
By reducing settlement times from days to near real time, participating institutions hope to lower liquidity costs, reduce settlement risk and give businesses faster access to funds tied up in cross-border transactions.
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In May, combined exchange volumes fell 3.45% to $4.41T; the lowest since September 2024. RWA perpetual futures volumes rose 10.4% against the trend, hitting a new all-time high.
Jun 15, 2026
In May, combined exchange volumes fell 3.45% to $4.41T; the lowest since September 2024. RWA perpetual futures volumes rose 10.4% against the trend, hitting a new all-time high.
Why it matters:
In May, combined exchange volumes fell 3.45% to $4.41T; the lowest since September 2024. RWA perpetual futures volumes rose 10.4% against the trend, hitting a new all-time high.