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.