Sony Bank received conditional approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on July 6 to charter Connectia Trust, National Association — a wholly owned New York-based subsidiary capitalized at $40 million for issuing and managing dollar-denominated stablecoins. The entity targ...
Sony Bank received conditional approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on July 6 to charter Connectia Trust, National Association — a wholly owned New York-based subsidiary capitalized at $40 million for issuing and managing dollar-denominated stablecoins. The entity targets 2027 operations, pending final clearance.
The approval makes Sony the first major non-financial corporation to win a federal stablecoin trust charter, joining a pipeline of 13+ applicants that have filed since December 2025. The move reflects a strategic calculation: Sony's Game & Network Services division generated $29.8 billion in FY2025 revenue, with over two-thirds coming from digital content and network services subject to credit card interchange fees averaging 2.4% to 3.5% per transaction. A proprietary stablecoin routed through its PlayStation and Crunchyroll platforms could reduce those costs to under 1%, recapturing hundreds of millions in annual payment processing fees.
The broader pattern is unmistakable. Since the OCC began issuing conditional trust charters in December 2025, eleven companies — including Circle, Paxos, Ripple, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets, Bridge (Stripe), Crypto.com, Morgan Stanley, and Coinbase — have received or applied for federal banking licenses tied to stablecoin operations. The OCC currently supervises approximately 60 national trust banks holding roughly $2 trillion in custody and safekeeping assets. The stablecoin class is about to expand that number materially.
The OCC granted Sony Bank conditional approval on July 6, 2026, to form Connectia Trust, National Association. Key structural details:
Sony Bank stated that "the establishment of this trust subsidiary is intended to contribute to the development of a medium- to long-term business foundation for the Sony Financial Group's digital asset businesses."
The conditional approval does not authorize immediate stablecoin issuance. Connectia Trust must satisfy additional requirements before opening as an operating national trust bank. Sony Bank has partnered with Bastion, a U.S.-based stablecoin infrastructure firm, to handle issuance, reserve management, and custody operations.
Sony's existing blockchain footprint includes Soneium, an Ethereum Layer 2 network launched in early 2025 through Sony Block Solutions Labs in Singapore. Blockchain partner Startale issued a separate dollar stablecoin (Startale USD / USDSC) on Soneium in December 2025. Circle's USDC is already integrated as a primary token on the Soneium network. The relationship between Connectia Trust's planned stablecoin and the existing Soneium ecosystem has not been formally clarified.
The financial rationale is straightforward. Sony's gaming and entertainment ecosystem processes billions of dollars annually in digital transactions — game purchases, subscriptions, in-game microtransactions, anime streaming — almost entirely through credit card rails.
Key revenue data points:
Average credit card interchange fees run 2.36% for Visa and Mastercard combined, with e-commerce merchants paying closer to 3.5% once international and FX fees are included. U.S. merchants paid a record $198.25 billion in credit card processing fees in 2025.
By contrast, stablecoin payment gateways charge approximately 0.8% per transaction with no interchange network, no card association fees, and no dispute arbitration layer. Native stablecoin payments also eliminate the 0.5% to 1% chargeback insurance cost baked into card network pricing.
For a platform processing $10 billion annually through card rails at an average 2.5% fee, the shift to stablecoin settlement at under 1% represents potential savings of $150 million or more per year. The actual figure depends on adoption rates, gas costs, off-ramp fees, and regulatory compliance overhead, but the directional economics are significant.
Stablecoin settlement also collapses the authorization-clearing-settlement cycle into a single atomic operation completing in seconds, compared to the average card settlement time of 1.9 business days as of early 2026. For a company processing $10 million monthly, a three-day settlement delay costs approximately $25,000 annually in financing costs alone. At Sony's scale, the working capital benefit is orders of magnitude larger.
Sony's approval is part of a systematic regulatory opening. Since December 12, 2025, the OCC has conditionally approved or received applications from at least 13 entities for national trust bank charters tied to stablecoin and digital asset operations:
| Date | Entity | Status | |------|--------|--------| | Dec 12, 2025 | Circle | Conditional approval | | Dec 12, 2025 | Ripple | Conditional approval | | Dec 12, 2025 | BitGo | Conditional approval | | Dec 12, 2025 | Paxos | Conditional approval | | Dec 12, 2025 | Fidelity Digital Assets | Conditional approval | | Early Feb 2026 | Protego | Conditional approval | | Feb 12, 2026 | Bridge (Stripe) | Conditional approval | | Feb 18, 2026 | Morgan Stanley | Filed application | | Feb 23, 2026 | Crypto.com | Conditional approval | | Feb 24, 2026 | Payoneer | Filed application | | Mar 4-5, 2026 | Zerohash | Filed application | | Apr 2, 2026 | Coinbase | Conditional approval | | Jul 6, 2026 | Sony Bank (Connectia Trust) | Conditional approval |
Additional applicants in the pipeline include World Liberty Financial and Payward (Kraken's parent company). Anchorage Digital Bank already holds a full OCC charter.
On February 27, 2026, the OCC published a regulatory amendment to 12 CFR 5.20, replacing "fiduciary activities" with "operations of a trust company and activities related thereto." The amendment, effective April 1, 2026, broadened the scope of permissible activities for national trust banks to explicitly include non-fiduciary custody — a direct enabler for stablecoin reserve management.
Under the national trust bank charter, these entities can issue stablecoins, custody digital assets, and manage reserves under federal oversight. The charter provides a single federal regulator (OCC) and is valid across all 50 states, eliminating the need for state-by-state licensing.
The charter wave operates within the framework established by the GENIUS Act, signed into law on July 18, 2025. The law sets specific requirements for permitted payment stablecoin issuers:
The FDIC approved its second rulemaking implementing GENIUS Act provisions in April 2026, establishing application procedures for insured depository institutions seeking to issue payment stablecoins through subsidiaries. Six federal agencies face a July 18, 2026 deadline to publish final GENIUS Act rules, with comment periods having closed on June 9.
The charter wave has drawn sustained political and industry opposition.
Senate opposition: Senator Elizabeth Warren sent a formal letter to the OCC on May 19, 2026, arguing that the regulator has "improperly" granted national trust charters to companies that do not qualify under the National Bank Act. Warren stated that "since December 2025, the OCC has approved at least nine national trust charters for crypto companies that intend to engage in activities that appear to go far beyond the narrow set of activities permitted by law."
Community banking lobby: The Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) formally opposed Sony's application and has requested that the OCC rescind Coinbase's conditional approval. The ICBA projects that if stablecoin issuers pay yield on their tokens, the resulting deposit drain could cost community banks $1.3 trillion and cut their lending by roughly $850 billion, affecting small businesses, farmers, and rural borrowers.
The ICBA has asked the OCC to pause its review of pending applications, rescind a 2021 interpretive letter that broadened national trust bank powers, and undertake formal rulemaking to clarify the charter's scope.
Conference of State Banking Supervisors: Its president described the OCC charter structure as a "Franken-charter."
Academic criticism: A Duke University Financial Regulation Blog analysis published May 21, 2026, argued that the OCC's stablecoin charter program is "illegal, dangerous, and likely to end in bailouts."
The political environment around these approvals remains contested. The CLARITY Act, which would establish a broader regulatory framework for digital assets, faces its own legislative challenges with a narrow three-week Senate window.
Sony enters a market that is large, growing, and heavily concentrated:
Chain distribution remains similarly concentrated: Ethereum carries $157.09 billion in stablecoins (50.69% of supply), while Tron carries $89.90 billion (29.01%). Two chains hold approximately 80% of all stablecoin value.
The market has grown from roughly $130 billion in early 2024 to $311 billion in mid-2026 — a 139% increase in roughly 30 months. Dollar-pegged tokens account for over 99% of the total.
Sony's entry represents a different competitive vector. Unlike Circle, Tether, or Paxos — which compete for general-purpose payment and settlement use — Sony would operate a captive stablecoin within a closed ecosystem of 51.6 million PlayStation Plus subscribers and Crunchyroll's user base. The token's primary function is fee displacement, not open-market competition with existing stablecoins.
Sony's Connectia Trust application signals a structural shift in who issues stablecoins and why. The first wave of OCC charter applicants — Circle, Paxos, Ripple — were crypto-native firms seeking federal legitimacy. The second wave included traditional financial institutions: Fidelity, Morgan Stanley. Sony represents a third category: a non-financial corporation with a massive digital transaction base seeking to internalize payment economics.
The $40 million capitalization is modest. The strategic intent is not. Sony's gaming division processes tens of billions in digital payments annually through card networks that extract 2% to 3.5% per transaction. A proprietary stablecoin eliminates most of that cost while accelerating settlement from days to seconds. The question is whether 51.6 million PlayStation Plus subscribers will adopt a new payment method, and whether regulators will maintain the permissive charter framework through a contested political environment.
The OCC has granted or received at least 13 stablecoin-related charter applications in seven months. Whether this pace continues depends on the outcome of the GENIUS Act rulemaking deadline on July 18, the unresolved CLARITY Act legislation, and the sustained opposition from community banks and Senate critics. The regulatory window is open. It is not guaranteed to stay that way.