Tech giant Sony’s online banking unit said it received conditional approval to establish a subsidiary of a US national trust bank to support the issuance and management of dollar-denominated stablecoins.
The planned unit, Connectia Trust, National Association, will be based in New York and will be capitalized with $40 million, according to an announcement from Sony Financial Group. Sony Bank will own 100% of the subsidiary.
The move comes as the use of stablecoins is increasing. Transaction volume hit a record $1.79 trillion last month, up 63% from May and more than double the level a year earlier, according to Visa’s on-chain dashboard.
With dollar-pegged tokens accounting for more than 99% of the total $311 billion market capitalization, according to data from DeFiLlama, it may be a difficult market to penetrate.
Not only do market leaders USDT and USDC account for around $250 billion of the total, but competition is increasing. A wave of potential rivals 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.
