In brief
- Japan's Sony Bank has won conditional approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to set up a national trust bank, Connectia Trust, to issue a dollar-backed stablecoin.
- The subsidiary will be established this month with $40 million in capital and is expected to begin operations in 2027, pending final approval.
- Sony envisions U.S. customers using the token to pay for video games, anime and subscriptions across its ecosystem.
Sony Bank has secured conditional approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to establish a national trust bank, moving Japan's Sony Financial Group closer to issuing its own dollar-backed stablecoin.
The lender plans to set up a wholly owned subsidiary, Connectia Trust, this month with $40 million in capital, it said in a statement dated July 6. The unit would issue and manage a dollar-denominated stablecoin, and is expected to begin operating in 2027 once it clears the regulator's remaining conditions.
Sony Bank said the trust is meant to build a "medium- to long-term business foundation" for Sony Financial Group's digital-asset business. It has not yet named a representative for Connectia Trust.
A stablecoin for the PlayStation economy
The bank previously told Nikkei that it wants U.S. customers to use the token to pay for digital content across Sony's ecosystem, trimming the fees that come with card payments. Sony's footprint spans the PlayStation platform and the Crunchyroll anime service, though no major franchise has yet committed to the plan.
The push is only viable in the U.S. thanks to the GENIUS Act, the federal law passed last year that set reserve and disclosure rules for dollar-pegged tokens. It also dovetails with Sony's wider crypto strategy: the company launched an Ethereum layer-2 network, Soneium, in early 2025, on which its blockchain partner Startale rolled out a separate dollar stablecoin late last year. For its own token, Sony Bank has tapped infrastructure firm Bastion to handle issuance, reserve management and custody.
A crowded charter queue
Sony is joining a line of crypto and payments firms seeking federal trust status. In December, the OCC conditionally approved Circle, Ripple, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets and Paxos, and applications have kept coming, including one from Trump-linked World Liberty Financial. A national trust charter lets a firm custody assets, manage reserves and issue stablecoins under federal supervision, but bars it from taking cash deposits or making loans.
Sony's bid has already faced pushback. The Independent Community Bankers of America urged the OCC to reject the Connectia Trust application in November, arguing it would let Sony issue deposit-like stablecoins while sidestepping the insurance and rules that bind ordinary banks.
The wave of applications has also drawn political heat, with Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) arguing that the OCC improperly granted charters to firms that don't qualify under the National Bank Act. The Digital Chamber, a trade group representing more than 250 crypto companies, rejected that in May, with CEO Cody Carbone saying the criticism "misreads both the statute and the OCC's longstanding charter authority." A U.S. banking lobby has also weighed a lawsuit over the charters.
For now, Connectia Trust is a plan on paper: the conditional nod does not let Sony open for business, and the bank must satisfy the OCC's outstanding conditions before its token can launch, currently slated for 2027. The global stablecoin market cap, meanwhile, sits above $308 billion.