Chainlink has partnered with banking consortiums in Europe and South Korea to launch Project Pangea, a working group dedicated to enabling same-day, real-time settlement of cross-border FX transactions. The initiative aims to allow instant currency swaps between regulated euro and Korean won stablecoins, leveraging advanced blockchain and messaging technologies to transform the way international payments are processed.
A new settlement model bridging Europe and Asia
Project Pangea brings together Chainlink, FairSquareLab, UniKA, and Qivalis under a unified structure. The consortium reportedly represents over $10 trillion in aggregated assets. UniKA’s steering committee is comprised of Shinhan Bank, JB Bank, Kbank, FairSquareLab, and OBDIA, with participation from more than 10 additional South Korean commercial banks, signaling broad institutional support from both regions.
Global foreign exchange markets currently see daily transaction volumes around $9.6 trillion. Yet, the fragmented infrastructure and lengthy processing times create extra costs and delays, particularly in cross-border transfers. Project Pangea seeks to minimize reliance on intermediary currencies and offers an atomic swap model based on payment-versus-payment principles, addressing a longstanding industry bottleneck.
Fernando Vazquez, Head of Capital Markets at Chainlink Labs, highlighted that the initiative is designed to revamp today’s fragmented FX environment by enabling direct and atomic swaps of currencies through stablecoins.
The report notes that Project Pangea integrates the ISO 20022 messaging standard with the existing Swift network. This allows participating banks to connect to the platform without overhauling their internal payment systems. Chainlink, known for its cross-blockchain data and messaging services, provides the crucial connectivity layer powering this system.
Three-layer technical architecture stands out
The technical stack behind Project Pangea is built on three main layers. The first is anchored in bank messaging using Swift and ISO 20022 standards. The second relies on Chainlink’s CCIP (Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol), Data Streams, and Runtime Environment solutions. Settlement occurs on the third layer through smart contracts deployed across Ethereum, Polygon, and the custom Pangea L1 blockchain.
Quick glossary: CCIP is an interoperability protocol developed for secure messaging and asset transfers between different blockchains. ISO 20022 serves as a global financial messaging standard, providing uniform data formats for banks and payment systems.
Developed by FairSquareLab, the Pangea L1 chain is described as a consensus-focused blockchain untied to any single country or bank. At a protocol level, it ensures that oracle data feeds are processed with each block before any other transactions, allowing FX swaps to settle at current market prices and mitigating the risk of price manipulation.
Joonhong Kim, CEO of FairSquareLab, noted that the project enables the Korean won to connect directly with global currency markets—a change that goes beyond efficiency to represent a fundamental shift for the nation’s financial system.
Qivalis and the euro stablecoin take center stage
Qivalis, a euro stablecoin consortium backed by 37 European banks, forms a foundational currency layer within the network. By using Chainlink’s CCIP, euro stablecoin transfers can occur securely across multiple blockchains and link seamlessly with the settlement chain for Korean won. Real-time FX rates are integrated through Chainlink’s Data Streams, providing up-to-the-second pricing for all transactions.
Jean-Luc Gustave, Head of APAC Partnerships at Qivalis, emphasized that moving to a lower-friction model for cross-border payments could reduce traditional settlement risk and significantly boost intraday liquidity efficiency. The program is positioned to expand regulated stablecoin use among institutions for high-volume currency flows between Europe and Asia.
The report also revealed that Project Pangea is designed to evolve into a multi-currency settlement platform that will add new institutions and currency corridors as the network expands.
