Sony Bank secures conditional OCC approval for U.S. stablecoin trust bank

Technology giant Sony's online banking unit said it received conditional approval to establish a U.S. national trust bank subsidiary to support the issuance and management of dollar-denominated stablecoins.

The planned unit, Connectia Trust, National Association, will be based in New York and capitalized with $40 million, according to a Sony Financial Group announcement . Sony Bank will own 100% of the subsidiary.

The move comes as stablecoin usage is surging. Transaction volume hit a $1.79 trillion record last month, 63% more than in May and more than double the year-earlier level, according to Visa’s onchain dashboard .

With dollar-pegged tokens accounting for more than 99% of the total $311 billon market capitalization, according to DeFiLlama data , it may be a difficult market to crack.

Not only do market leaders USDT and USDC alone account for about $250 billion of the total, competition is increasing. A wave of potential rivals has also won conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) for federal trust-bank structures tied to stablecoin businesses, including Stripe-owned Bridge, Paxos and Circle Internet.

Sony's trust bank will not begin operations, including stablecoin issuance, until it receives all required approvals, including final approval from the OCC, Sony Financial said.

Sony Bank's move follows earlier plans for a stablecoin that could be used for games and anime payments .

The OCC approval is conditional and does not guarantee a launch date or token issuance. The filing comes as U.S. regulators have been moving ahead with stablecoin rules under the GENIUS Act , which establishes a comprehensive federal framework for payment stablecoins

Stablecoin market cap fell to $312B in June, its largest monthly drop since TerraUSD, while tokenized equity volumes surged 145% to a record $3.86B.

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