Danal Expands Partnership with Japan’s UPC... To Pursue Cross-Border Payments and Yen Stablecoin Business

From the left, Jinyang Yong, Head of Business at Danal, and Shuhei Nakao, CEO of UPC

Danal announced on April 23 that it has entered into a strategic partnership with UPC (UNIVA Paycast), a payment company under Japan’s UNIVA Group, to expand the cross-border payment market between Korea and Japan. Through this collaboration, the two companies plan to link their payment infrastructures and enhance payment convenience for foreigners within the K-tourism industry.

UPC provides a wide range of payment services across Japan, covering both online and offline transactions such as QR payments, e-money, card payments, and international simple payment solutions. It operates a global cross-border payment platform based on its network connected to major Japanese payment services including PayPay, Rakuten Pay, and Suica.

Through this agreement, the two companies will jointly expand the payment ecosystem between the two countries by combining their respective payment infrastructures, networks, and UPC’s base of local merchants in Japan. Specifically, they plan to gradually implement payment and recharge services for travelers, cross-border education fee payments, support for Korea-Japan e-commerce payments, and improvements to the remittance and settlement structure for Japan trade. Furthermore, in the mid- to long-term, they will also consider building a yen-based stablecoin payment and distribution model.

As the first step of this collaboration, Danal will work to expand the global recharge network for the prepaid card ‘K.ONDA (Konda)’ for foreigners. By utilizing UPC’s local infrastructure, the company aims to improve the system so that Japanese tourists can more conveniently receive and recharge their cards before and after visiting Korea. Through this, Danal plans to proactively respond to various customer needs within a B2B2C structure and enhance the efficiency of payment and settlement processes, providing a more convenient environment for both merchants and consumers.

A representative from Danal stated, “We expect that this partnership will have a positive impact on the K-tourism industry by enhancing payment convenience for the increasing number of Japanese tourists visiting Korea.” The representative added, “Based on our successful experience in pilot projects for KRW and USDC payments in collaboration with banks, we will further expand into the yen payment ecosystem to secure differentiated competitiveness.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.