KB Kookmin Card, SBI Holdings Eye AI Payments

Panoramic view of the KB Kookmin Card headquarters building KB Kookmin Card announced on Oct. 13, that it signed a memorandum of understanding for digital financial cooperation with Japan’s comprehensive financial group SBI Holdings, as well as SBI Everspin and Everspin. The core of this agreement is to jointly explore plans to link the services of both countries utilizing AI agents and digital payments. SBI Holdings operates a wide range of financial businesses, including securities, banking, and insurance, while Everspin is a company that provides cybersecurity technology for the financial sector. SBI Everspin is a joint venture established by the two companies to target the Japanese market. The participating companies plan to build a trust system in which AI agents can safely perform tasks within the user’s permitted range. SBI Everspin is planning ‘KYA (Know Your Agent) Trust Gateway,’ a platform that manages the identity and authority of AI agents, and will pursue joint development with Everspin. During this cooperation process, the two companies agreed to be in charge of technical verification for the identity confirmation and authority validation of AI agents. The verification work will proceed in stages. Initially, it will verify the identity confirmation procedures when Japanese AI agents access Korean services, and later expand the scope to access authority management by service. Based on the results of this verification, KB Kookmin Card plans to closely examine the possibility of linking with its payment platform, KB Pay, and others. In the subsequent stage, it will review plans to connect digital assets, such as stablecoins held by Japanese tourists, with the domestic payment environment. Assuming a situation where actual payments are made at domestic affiliated stores, it plans to check procedures across overall operations, including payment and settlement, as well as cancellation, refunds, and responses to fraudulent transactions. Depending on the verification results, it is expected to be decided whether the related services will be commercialized. The participating companies plan to continuously expand the scope of cooperation between Korea and Japan by pursuing linkages with various financial and non-financial services. A KB Kookmin Card official said, “Taking this agreement as an opportunity, we plan to examine the possibility of digital payment cooperation between Korea and Japan,” and conveyed that they will provide a convenient and safe experience to customers of both countries. SBI Holdings also emphasized that it will create cooperation cases leading to stablecoin payments by combining the group’s financial capabilities and the participating companies’ security technologies.