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SEOUL, South Korea, Feb. 3, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Hecto Financial, a regulated financial services provider in South Korea, announced today its integration with Circle Payments Network (CPN). The integration provides Hecto Financial with access to a global settlement infrastructure for cross-border payments using regulated stablecoins such as USDC.
Moving forward, Hecto Financial plans to streamline overseas remittance and settlement procedures through CPN, in alignment with domestic regulatory standards in South Korea, to provide faster and more secure cross-border payment services to both domestic and international customers.
Operated by Circle Technology Services, LLC, an affiliate of Circle Internet Group, Inc. (NYSE: CRCL), CPN connects financial institutions, payment providers, and fintechs to facilitate programmable, always-on settlement using stablecoins such as USDC and EURC. The network is designed to unify traditional and blockchain-based payment systems while eliminating intermediaries and supporting real-time settlement.
Through CPN, Hecto Financial aims to enhance the speed, efficiency, and global reach of its cross-border payment services for enterprise clients and platform partners. Supported use cases include B2B payments, remittances, and treasury flows.
"As financial infrastructure evolves, we see an opportunity to offer clients new ways to move value quickly across borders in a compliant manner," said Jong-won Choi, CEO of Hecto Financial. "In line with the global shift toward stablecoin-centered financial infrastructure, Hecto Financial aims to help establish a foundation for the KRW-based digital payment ecosystem to expand into global markets and contribute to enhancing the international standing of the Korean Won."
"Hecto Financial's integration with Circle Payments Network supports the delivery of near-instant cross-border payments across key global corridors," said Irfan Ganchi, SVP of Product Management, Payments at Circle. "By connecting to CPN, Hecto enables programmable money movement that aligns with the demands of today's digital economy."
This integration builds on Hecto Financial's participation in the October 2025 public testnet of Arc, Circle's enterprise-grade layer-1 blockchain designed as the Economic Operating System (OS) for the internet, where it joined over 100 institutions in validating early infrastructure use cases.
About Hecto Financial
Hecto Financial (KOSDAQ: 234340) is a leading, regulated financial services provider in South Korea, offering a comprehensive suite of integrated payment solutions and financial infrastructure. The company specializes in virtual accounts, automated settlement systems, and innovative cross-border payment services. Leveraging its robust domestic network and advanced technological capabilities, Hecto Financial is at the forefront of modernizing financial services by bridging traditional banking systems with digital assets and blockchain-based settlement networks. The company is committed to delivering secure, compliant, and efficient financial tools for enterprise clients and platform partners globally.
About Circle Payments Network
Circle Technology Services, LLC (CTS) is the operator of Circle Payments Network (CPN) and offers products and services to financial institutions that participate in CPN to facilitate their CPN access and integration. CPN connects participating financial institutions around the world, with CTS serving as the technology service provider to participating financial institutions. While CTS does not hold funds or manage accounts on behalf of customers, we enable the global ecosystem of participating financial institutions to connect directly with each other, communicate securely, and settle directly with each other. CTS is not a party to transactions between participating financial institutions facilitated by CPN who use CPN to execute transactions at their own risk. Use of CPN is subject to the CPN Rules and the CPN Participation Agreement between CTS and a participating financial institution.
SEOUL, South Korea, Feb. 3, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Hecto Financial, a regulated financial services provider in South Korea, announced today its integration with Circle Payments Network (CPN). The integration provides Hecto Financial with access to a global settlement infrastructure for cross-border payments using regulated stablecoins such as USDC.
Moving forward, Hecto Financial plans to streamline overseas remittance and settlement procedures through CPN, in alignment with domestic regulatory standards in South Korea, to provide faster and more secure cross-border payment services to both domestic and international customers.
Operated by Circle Technology Services, LLC, an affiliate of Circle Internet Group, Inc. (NYSE: CRCL), CPN connects financial institutions, payment providers, and fintechs to facilitate programmable, always-on settlement using stablecoins such as USDC and EURC. The network is designed to unify traditional and blockchain-based payment systems while eliminating intermediaries and supporting real-time settlement.
Through CPN, Hecto Financial aims to enhance the speed, efficiency, and global reach of its cross-border payment services for enterprise clients and platform partners. Supported use cases include B2B payments, remittances, and treasury flows.
"As financial infrastructure evolves, we see an opportunity to offer clients new ways to move value quickly across borders in a compliant manner," said Jong-won Choi, CEO of Hecto Financial. "In line with the global shift toward stablecoin-centered financial infrastructure, Hecto Financial aims to help establish a foundation for the KRW-based digital payment ecosystem to expand into global markets and contribute to enhancing the international standing of the Korean Won."
"Hecto Financial's integration with Circle Payments Network supports the delivery of near-instant cross-border payments across key global corridors," said Irfan Ganchi, SVP of Product Management, Payments at Circle. "By connecting to CPN, Hecto enables programmable money movement that aligns with the demands of today's digital economy."
This integration builds on Hecto Financial's participation in the October 2025 public testnet of Arc, Circle's enterprise-grade layer-1 blockchain designed as the Economic Operating System (OS) for the internet, where it joined over 100 institutions in validating early infrastructure use cases.
About Hecto Financial
Hecto Financial (KOSDAQ: 234340) is a leading, regulated financial services provider in South Korea, offering a comprehensive suite of integrated payment solutions and financial infrastructure. The company specializes in virtual accounts, automated settlement systems, and innovative cross-border payment services. Leveraging its robust domestic network and advanced technological capabilities, Hecto Financial is at the forefront of modernizing financial services by bridging traditional banking systems with digital assets and blockchain-based settlement networks. The company is committed to delivering secure, compliant, and efficient financial tools for enterprise clients and platform partners globally.
About Circle Payments Network
Circle Technology Services, LLC (CTS) is the operator of Circle Payments Network (CPN) and offers products and services to financial institutions that participate in CPN to facilitate their CPN access and integration. CPN connects participating financial institutions around the world, with CTS serving as the technology service provider to participating financial institutions. While CTS does not hold funds or manage accounts on behalf of customers, we enable the global ecosystem of participating financial institutions to connect directly with each other, communicate securely, and settle directly with each other. CTS is not a party to transactions between participating financial institutions facilitated by CPN who use CPN to execute transactions at their own risk. Use of CPN is subject to the CPN Rules and the CPN Participation Agreement between CTS and a participating financial institution.
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Hecto Financial Integrates with Circle Payments Network to Enable Stablecoin-Based Payments
HANGZHOU, China, April 3, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- A team led by principal investigators Bobo Dang and Ting Zhou at Westlake University/Westlake Laboratory reported in Science a high-throughput platform for engineering fast-acting covalent protein therapeutics. Their work, titled "A high-throughput selection system for fast-acting covalent protein drugs," opens new avenues for next-generation biologics.
Covalent small-molecule drugs have shown great success in cancer therapy by forming irreversible bonds with their targets. This has inspired efforts to extend covalent strategies to protein therapeutics, especially engineered miniproteins. However, their development is limited by a kinetic mismatch: Miniproteins are rapidly cleared in vivo, whereas covalent bond formation is typically slow. In addition, high-throughput platforms for systematically optimizing covalent protein reactivity have been lacking.
To address this challenge, the researchers proposed that precise spatial positioning of chemical warheads within protein scaffolds could enable molecular preorganization, thereby accelerating covalent bond formation without increasing intrinsic reactivity (Fig. 1).
Based on this concept, the team developed a high-throughput platform that combines yeast surface display with chemoselective protein modification to screen diverse crosslinkers and millions of protein variants. By optimizing warhead placement and the local chemical environment, the platform enables rapid and irreversible target engagement.
Using this platform, the researchers developed a covalent antagonist targeting PD-L1, termed IB101. Structural analysis revealed that IB101 forms a defined binding pocket that precisely positions the warhead in a reactive conformation, greatly accelerating covalent bond formation. Functionally, IB101 effectively blocks the PD-1/PD-L1 immune checkpoint pathway and demonstrates strong antitumor activity in mouse models. Notably, despite its short in vivo half-life, IB101 achieves durable target engagement and tumor suppression, outperforming conventional antibody-based therapies under comparable conditions.
The platform was further applied to cytokine engineering, leading to the development of a covalent IL-18 variant, IB201. This engineered cytokine rapidly forms a covalent interaction with its receptor, enhancing signaling strength and duration. In vivo studies showed that IB201 induces potent antitumor immune responses without detectable systemic toxicity. These results highlight the potential of covalent engineering to improve the efficacy and safety of cytokine-based therapies.
Beyond immunotherapy targets, the platform was also applied to develop a covalent inhibitor targeting the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of SARS-CoV-2. This molecule achieves durable viral neutralization, demonstrating the versatility of the approach across different therapeutic modalities.
This study establishes a general strategy for engineering fast-acting covalent protein therapeutics. By enabling covalent bond formation on timescales compatible with rapid in vivo clearance, the platform overcomes a fundamental limitation in the field.
These findings provide a new framework for designing biologics with both rapid kinetics and sustained target engagement, with broad implications for cancer immunotherapy, antiviral therapy, and beyond.
Media Contact:
Chi Zhang
media@westlake.edu.cn
+86-15659837873
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Fast-Acting Covalent Protein Drugs From a New High-Throughput Platform
