South Korea's National Assembly Budget Office has put a number on what merchants might save if payments shift from cards to stablecoins. In a new report, the parliamentary body estimated that won-denominated stablecoins could reduce merchants' annual payment fees by somewhere between 370 billion won (about $275 million) and 5.15 trillion won (about $3.8 billion), depending on how much spending moves and what the new rails charge. The estimate was reported by CoinDesk on September 8, 2026.
The wide range is the point. The low end assumes only a sliver of card volume migrates; the top end assumes a large chunk does and that stablecoin transfers cost merchants far less than card interchange. Either way, the analysis comes from a government office whose job is to score fiscal and economic proposals, not from a crypto issuer marketing a product. That is what makes it worth reading.
The fee math behind the estimate
Card acceptance in South Korea carries the same friction it does elsewhere: merchants pay a percentage of each sale to card networks, issuers, and processors. A won-pegged stablecoin settling directly between a customer's wallet and a shop's account skips most of those intermediaries. The budget office's headline figure is essentially the interchange and processing spread that would disappear if a meaningful share of retail spending moved on-chain.
The 5.15 trillion won ceiling only materializes under aggressive adoption assumptions. Small merchants, who feel card fees most acutely relative to margin, would be the clearest beneficiaries. But the savings are not automatic. They depend on stablecoin transfers actually being cheaper at the point of sale once you account for wallet providers, on-ramp costs, and any network fees, which are the same hidden layers that make "zero fee" claims on crypto payment products worth scrutinizing.
The warnings the same report carried
The budget office did not frame stablecoins as a free lunch. Its analysis flagged two structural risks. First, money moving out of bank deposits and into stablecoins could weaken banks' role as credit intermediaries. Deposits fund lending; if households and businesses park won in tokens instead, the pool banks draw on to make loans shrinks.
Second, the office pointed to redemption risk. A sudden wave of holders cashing out could force an issuer to sell reserve assets quickly, and a fire sale of reserves can break the peg and shake confidence in the token. That is the classic stablecoin failure mode, and a government body naming it in the same breath as the savings estimate signals that any won-stablecoin framework will come wrapped in reserve and redemption rules.
This lines up with what the Bank of Korea has argued separately, that dollar-denominated stablecoins in particular could pressure local currencies and complicate monetary control. The budget office's report keeps the focus on won-pegged tokens, which sidesteps the currency-substitution worry but not the banking-disintermediation one.
A concrete savings number changes the debate
Regulatory conversations usually stall on abstract risk. Attaching a concrete merchant-savings figure, even a wide one, gives lawmakers something to weigh against the risks. South Korea already has a live testing environment: domestic payments firms have been piloting stablecoin acceptance, including trials aimed at letting foreign visitors pay local merchants with stablecoins. A budget-office estimate lands into that active policy moment rather than a vacuum.
For anyone watching the broader payments picture, the read-through is simple. Stablecoins are increasingly being measured against card interchange as a direct competitor at checkout, not just as a trading instrument. Whether that translates into real merchant adoption depends on the rules Korea writes next, and on whether stablecoin rails stay cheaper than cards once every intermediary takes its cut.
Overview
South Korea's National Assembly Budget Office estimated that won-denominated stablecoins could cut merchant payment fees by 370 billion won to 5.15 trillion won a year (roughly $275 million to $3.8 billion), depending on adoption. The same report warned that deposit outflows could weaken banks as lenders and that redemption runs could break a token's peg. The figure lands as Korean payments firms actively pilot stablecoin acceptance, giving lawmakers a concrete savings number to weigh against structural risk.
