[Click e-Stock] "NAVER Poised to Benefit Most from Korean Won Stablecoin"

On August 11, Korea Investment & Securities identified NAVER as the company most likely to benefit from the introduction of a Korean won stablecoin.

Jung Hoyoon, a researcher at Korea Investment & Securities, stated, "The basic direction for the Korean won stablecoin is to use it for payments and remittances in e-commerce." He explained, "In this case, NAVER, which has large-scale platforms such as Naver Shopping and Naver Pay, is expected to be in the most advantageous position in terms of stablecoin issuance volume compared to its competitors."

Jung further noted, "Naver Pay's transaction volume is projected to reach 80 trillion won in 2025," and added, "Naver continues to achieve high growth rates close to the high teens, not only through Naver Shopping but also by expanding its usage to external partner malls and offline channels."

He continued, "If approximately 4 trillion won worth of stablecoins are issued, which is about 5% of the total transaction volume, NAVER could generate 120 billion to 160 billion won in interest income, assuming an interest rate of 3-4%." He also added, "If stablecoins in Korea become widely used not only as a simple payment method but also for DeFi and the trading of tokenized assets, NAVER is likely to establish itself as a key player in this field as well."

However, there are still several challenges to the introduction of stablecoins. Jung pointed out, "The main issue is that, from a consumer perspective, there are not many reasons to use stablecoins instead of existing payment methods." He emphasized, "Businesses need to create a competitive advantage for stablecoins in terms of convenience or economic benefits."

He also explained, "For stablecoins to have stable use cases, it will be even more important to run virtual asset businesses such as DeFi in parallel. From this perspective as well, NAVER is likely to have the greatest advantage through its partnership with Dunamu."

Jung maintained a 'Buy' investment rating on NAVER and set the target price at 300,000 won.