Korea Investment Securities is joining hands with Kakao Group to build financial infrastructure related to digital assets, including issuance and distribution, investment, remittances and settlement services, and electronic wallets.

Korea Investment Securities said on Wednesday it signed a strategic memorandum of understanding with Kakao, Kakao Bank and Kakao Pay for joint development and marketing of services related to digital-asset issuance and distribution.

Under the agreement, the two sides plan to flesh out ways to use digital assets and jointly develop financial services such as investment, remittances and settlement based on them.

They will also pursue cooperation to build key infrastructure such as electronic wallets to provide digital-asset services, as well as digital-asset custody and links to customer-facing services.

Korea Investment Securities plans to expand its digital-asset-based financial services business by combining its existing asset management capabilities with Kakao Group's platform.

It is also expected to specify service areas in line with future institutional changes, after including the full scope of digital-asset services in the cooperation, from investment, remittances and settlement to custody and wallets.

Kim Seong-hwan (김성환), CEO of Korea Investment Securities, said the partnership would be a chance to explore new possibilities for digital-asset-based financial services and added it would continue working to provide differentiated financial services to customers.