Here’s a further refined rewrite with a slightly tighter and more editorial tone:
Project Pangea aims to use stablecoins to settle multimillion-dollar foreign exchange trades between Europe and South Korea in near real time.
Chainlink said it has joined a banking consortium representing more than $10 trillion in assets, with the goal of enabling real-time, stablecoin-based cross-border FX settlement within a year.
According to Niki Ariyasinghe, Chainlink’s vice president for Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, the initiative seeks to reshape global FX infrastructure. Alongside Chainlink, participants include Qivalis, a euro stablecoin consortium backed by 37 European banks, and UniKA, a Korean banking alliance representing more than 10 commercial lenders.
The project explores replacing the traditional T+2 settlement cycle with near-instant T+0 settlement using regulated euro- and Korean won–pegged stablecoins, each designed to maintain a 1:1 parity with its underlying currency.
A key focus is atomic payment-versus-payment (PvP) settlement, where both sides of a trade settle simultaneously or not at all, reducing counterparty and settlement risk.
Ariyasinghe emphasized that the effort is aimed at production deployment rather than experimentation.
“This is not just a POC,” he said. “Everyone is coming in with their eyes wide open. The goal is real infrastructure… with live transactions under a legal and regulatory framework within the next 12 months.”
The project targets the Europe–South Korea trade corridor, which processes over $150 billion in annual goods and services. It also reflects broader adoption trends, with industry data suggesting Asia accounts for around 60% of global stablecoin activity.
Ariyasinghe said this highlights where demand is strongest, particularly in regions where financial infrastructure gaps are creating room for tokenized cash solutions.
Rather than replacing legacy systems, Project Pangea is designed as a middleware layer. Banks initiate payments via SWIFT, while Chainlink’s infrastructure converts those messages into atomic settlement instructions on the Pangea L1 Network.
The system is built to integrate with SWIFT and ISO 20022 standards, enabling banks to connect to blockchain-based rails without overhauling core infrastructure.
While some may view the initiative as competing with Ripple’s payments strategy, Chainlink framed it as complementary rather than adversarial.
“I wouldn’t necessarily describe it as a rival,” Ariyasinghe said. “We’re a technology provider. It’s about deploying the tech where it creates value and scaling it organically.”
Ultimately, the goal is to reduce settlement delays that trap capital in transit.
“If money is stuck for days, it can’t be used,” he said. “Reducing that friction is clearly beneficial for users.”
By compressing settlement times from days to near real time, participating institutions aim to lower liquidity costs, reduce risk, and improve capital efficiency in cross-border payments.
