Sony just landed the OCC’s conditional approval to open Connectia Trust, a national trust bank capitalized at $40 million, the company disclosed Monday. The Sony Financial Group subsidiary is set to form this month, with a 2027 launch aimed squarely at issuing and managing U.S. dollar stablecoins.
Forty million dollars is a rounding error next to Sony’s PlayStation and Pictures revenue, but it’s not small inside Sony Financial Group: the sum tops 10% of that unit’s own capital, the exact threshold that forced Sony to disclose Connectia’s licensing progress to a Japanese finance bureau under the country’s securities law.
Comptroller Jonathan Gould’s OCC has been on a streak. Five crypto firms, including Ripple, BitGo and Paxos, picked up conditional trust charters in December. Sony’s the first multinational conglomerate to bolt a stablecoin business onto that charter type.
Trade groups hate the precedent. The National Community Reinvestment Coalition says the charter hands Connectia bank-grade credibility without bank-grade obligations, including exemption from the Community Reinvestment Act. The Independent Community Bankers of America added that, unlike a bank, a trust wouldn’t be forced to hold deposit insurance, and warned the OCC’s untested receivership framework can’t handle an uninsured stablecoin issuer failing.
The real signal is the condition Gould’s OCC bolted on: it can force Sony to hire a dedicated, non-dual-role CFO whenever it decides the org chart isn’t ready. That’s a regulator hedging its own approval. Sony hasn’t named anyone to run Connectia yet. Launch is still slated for 2027.
Marcus Webb