Stablecoins “entering the mainstream” may be overused, but Sony’s plans could be key for this phrase coming to fruition.
Sony Bank has secured conditional approval from the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish a national trust bank.
Months of regulatory back and forth have led to this point, with the bank now cleared to move ahead with Connectia Trust, a New York-based national trust bank that will act as the anchor of the group’s US financial ambitions.
According to an announcement by Sony Bank President and CEO Keiji Minami, the bank is targeting a full launch in 2027, pending additional licences from both US and Japanese regulators.
The institution says that the trust charter will set the foundation for a more expansive strategy to support Sony Group companies operating in the US, while also enabling new digital experiences for creators and fandom communities.
The bank will not operate as a traditional deposit-taking institution, meaning that it will not accept deposits or offer standard banking services.
Issuing and managing dollar-pegged stablecoins will be the main focus of Connectia, with the project set to run on infrastructure built by Bastion Platforms, a US-based fintech.
Why Sony’s stablecoin push is worth watching
Dollar-denominated stablecoins dominate the market at the moment, with Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC boasting the majority of market share. According to DefiLlama, USDT has a market cap of $184.1bn, USDC $73.27bn, followed by Sky Dollar with $7.5bn.
This dominance is likely the reason that Sony has decided to launch a stablecoin backed by the US dollar instead of the Japanese yen, though no issuer has yet to really challenge the top two positions.
It is thought that the emergence of corporations entering stablecoin issuance could have some impact, with Fiserv and Klarna launching stablecoins over the past year. Sony overshadows the influence of these companies due to its huge ecosystem.
Under Sony, there are the PlayStation Network, Sony Music, Sony Pictures and Sony Bank. All operate in different sectors but are involved in large volumes of payments, creating a lot of natural places where a stablecoin could become useful.
Speaking to Payment Expert last month, Victor Mithouard, VP of Payments and Strategy at Mambu, said: “No one’s asking for a stablecoin. What people are asking for is cheaper, faster, more transparent, predictable payments.”
Mithouard added that stablecoins are a payment instrument that thrives on network effects.
This coincides with the increased scrutiny of card payments due to interchange fees, which has led to several US banks looking to purchase their own debit networks to gain control of these fees and bypass current US laws.
Push stablecoins into the mainstream
Regulation was seen as what was needed to finally move stablecoins into the mainstream, but this has not really been the case.
Companies like Sony that already have large ecosystems could provide the push needed for stablecoins to gain wider adoption. Rather than regulators deciding what payment methods become successful, it is the market that decides what consumers and businesses actually use.
If Sony integrates stablecoins across its different platforms, it could create real world use cases and provide a reason for people to adopt them in their daily lives. The same applies to other companies with large customer bases and existing payment flows.
This could be the missing step for stablecoins, as regulation alone has not been enough to change payment habits. The UK, for example, has spent years encouraging alternative payment methods to reduce reliance on cards, but adoption has been limited as consumers continue to use the methods they already know and trust.
