Dinari, a financial infrastructure company for tokenized equities, and Kakao Pay Securities, a leading mobile-first securities firm in South Korea, announced a strategic partnership on September 29 to explore tokenizing Korean-listed stocks for investors outside the country, including in the United States. The two firms will build a framework for sourcing underlying Korean equities, run a proof of concept, and establish a joint task force to evaluate the operational, technical and regulatory requirements for potential international distribution.
Applying Dinari’s dShares model to Korean equities
The partnership will test whether Dinari’s dShares model can be applied to Korean-listed equities. Under the custodial model, each token is backed one-to-one by the corresponding underlying security and is designed to preserve shareholder rights, including dividends and voting. Dinari already offers 724 tokenized U.S. stocks and exchange-traded funds to eligible investors in more than 85 jurisdictions and is registered as a transfer agent with the SEC.
Today, international access to Korean equities remains limited: only a subset of Korean companies can be reached through depositary receipts listed on overseas exchanges. The companies argue tokenization could open another channel that keeps the link to the underlying shares intact.
A joint task force, with no companies or timeline named
The partners plan to set up a joint task force later this year to develop the operational framework and design the proof of concept. The work will cover issuing and redeeming tokens against underlying shares, reconciling tokenized and underlying securities, handling shareholder rights, and the infrastructure needed for distribution through Dinari’s network of partners.
No specific Korean companies have been selected for the proof of concept, and neither firm has set a public timeline for commercial availability. “Starting with the sourcing of Korean-listed equities and advancing through a proof of concept for equity tokenization, we will carefully assess the technical feasibility,” said Inyoung Chung, executive vice president of Kakao Pay Securities. Dinari CEO Gabe Otte added that the partnership is an opportunity to connect Korean public markets with a broader global investor base.
Tokenized equities gain institutional ground
The agreement extends a wave of activity linking traditional exchanges and securities infrastructure to blockchain rails, including Blockchain.com’s tokenized-securities tie-up with the NYSE and the SEC’s innovation exemption for tokenized stock trading. Kakao Pay Securities, which launched in February 2020 with fractional share trading, obtained an investment trading business license in July 2026, expanding the foundation for this tokenization work. The collaboration remains an exploratory memorandum of understanding rather than a completed product.
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