South Korea’s largest trading firm, POSCO International, has begun tokenizing trade receivables on a blockchain network in a pilot program aimed at accelerating commercial payments across its global subsidiaries. The company, which generated $22.2 billion in revenue last year across its steel, energy, and battery materials divisions, has partnered with LG CNS—the technology division of LG Group—to manage the issuance, transfer, and settlement of these receivables on the layer-1 Injective blockchain network, The Korea Times said in a report.
Unlike typical technical demonstrations, the ongoing proof-of-concept utilizes real-world trade data generated from actual transactions between POSCO’s overseas operations and their corporate counterparties. Trade receivables represent capital owed to a business after products have been shipped but prior to final payment receipt. Traditional settlement frameworks rely on disjointed tracking across buyers, sellers, and financial institutions, often resulting in multi-day reconciliation delays before cash reserves are released.
By digitizing receivables on a shared blockchain ledger, the collaborating firms aim to create a single, immutable transaction record that can be transferred and settled efficiently while embedding regulatory compliance directly within the tokenized asset. A spokesperson for POSCO International confirmed that the trial validates the practical application of blockchain and automated technology against live trade processes, with plans to transition the system into live production following the completion of the pilot later this year.
The initiative comes as corporate tokenization efforts expand beyond digital funds and traditional equities into broader real-world asset applications. Major global asset managers including BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, and Apollo have increasingly migrated fund structures onchain to streamline settlement workflows, pushing the global tokenized asset market to $35 billion—a total that financial analysts at Citi project could reach $5.5 trillion by 2030. Trade finance is rapidly emerging as a primary growth sector within this movement, as tokenized receivables allow multinational corporations to optimize working capital while providing lenders with unified visibility into underlying obligations.
This trial further positions South Korea as an active hub for enterprise blockchain integration. The move follows recent initiatives across the country’s corporate landscape, including automotive manufacturer Hyundai’s deployment of stablecoins for cross-border treasury movements between its North American operations, as well as joint ventures between stablecoin providers and domestic financial technology platforms like Kakao Group and Toss Bank.
