Hedera Hashgraph, the sole official of Hashgraph, the distributed ledger technology created as an alternative to blockchain technology, signed a stablecoin agreement with South Korea’s Shinhan Bank and South Africa’s Standard Bank.
Hedera Hashgraph is described as an enterprise-level public blockchain operating in a decentralized economy.
Banks will issue stablecoins backed by local currencies using the Hedera Network to facilitate worldwide money transfers, and these stablecoins will be used for sending transactions.
Indicating that international remittances are generally costly and take a long time to complete, banks said they chose international remittances because of the high probability of disruption to transactions.
The aim of the stablecoin project is to test the issuance and use of local currency-backed stablecoins for international remittances, which often put senders and receivers in trouble due to high fees and delays.
As part of the project, Shinhan Bank will issue a South Korean Won-backed stablecoin to be exchanged for the South African currency “Rand” and sent to Standard Bank users.
Mance Harmon, co-founder and CEO of Hedera Hashgraph, said:
“International remittances was a massive $702 billion market in 2020, with $539 billion going to low- and middle-income countries. There is a huge opportunity to eliminate the middleman and make this process significantly more efficient and cost-effective, often providing as much money as possible to people who urgently need it.
We commend Shinhan and Standard Bank and their partners for developing this solution, and are proud to enjoy the economic and speed benefits that only the Hedera network can provide.”
It is not investment advice.