Sony Stablecoin Trust Gets Conditional OCC Nod

Sony is moving its stablecoin plans from the gaming server to the banking charter.

The Sony Financial Group unit said it received conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to set up a national trust bank subsidiary called Connectia Trust in New York. Capitalized at $40 million, the entity is designed to issue and manage dollar-pegged tokens, the bank said in an announcement.

A trust bank structure gives Sony a federally regulated onramp for stablecoin issuance without needing money transmitter licenses across 50 states. The OCC has handed out a series of similar approvals to Bridge, Paxos, and Circle – all for the same federal trust charter.

The timing puts Sony in a crowded pool. The stablecoin market alone holds $311 billion in total cap, with Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC) controlling roughly $250 billion of that, per DeFiLlama. Visa data shows transaction volume hit $1.79 trillion in May, up 63% from April and more than double the year-ago level.

Sony's angle is not payments infrastructure. The company has signaled plans for a stablecoin that could route through its entertainment and gaming ecosystem, settling fees or in-game purchases without credit card rails. Sony Bank will own 100% of Connectia Trust. Operations do not start until the OCC issues final approval.

The regulatory backdrop is moving alongside the charter applications. The GENIUS Act, which advanced through the Senate Banking Committee in March, would create a federal framework for payment stablecoins with reserve requirements and state-federal preemption rules. A conditional OCC charter like Sony's gives an early procedural edge if the bill becomes law.

Still, June data shows the stablecoin market hit its largest one-month cap drop since the TerraUSD collapse, shrinking to $312 billion. Tokenized equity volumes, meanwhile, hit a record $3.86 billion, up 145% – a trend that may matter more for trust banks that want to expand beyond dollar tokens.

Connectia Trust has no launch date. Sony Financial said it will provide updates when the OCC process advances.

Sony's online banking unit holds AlphaScala's proprietary Alpha Score of 28 out of 100, a Weak rating that reflects the sector's competitive and regulatory uncertainty.