Sony has received conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to establish a national trust bank in the U.S., the Japanese conglomerate disclosed Monday.

Connectia Trust, a subsidiary of Sony Financial Group, is set for formation this month and will be capitalized at $40 million, the company said.

Sony did not name a representative to lead Connectia, according to Monday’s filing. The company is preparing to launch Connectia in 2027, International Business Times reported.

The trust will be established “in preparation for the commercialization of businesses related to the issuance and management of U.S. dollar‑denominated stablecoins in the United States,” Sony said.

However, the filing did not detail any specific products Connectia intends to bring to market, nor whether it is meant to serve retail or institutional customers.

Sony was forced to disclose Connectia’s licensing developments to a local finance bureau, under Japan’s Financial Instruments and Exchange Act, because the trust’s $40 million exceeds 10% of Sony Financial Group’s capital, according to Tokyo Brief.

National trust bank charters have seen a spike in interest under OCC chief Jonathan Gould. A significant number of applications have come from crypto firms, such as Circle, Ripple and Paxos, which were among the first wave of recent trust bank charter approvals in December. But large banks such as Morgan Stanley have sought trust charters, too, for nascent offshoots.

When Sony’s application went public in October, it generated backlash from banking trade groups such as the Bank Policy Institute and Independent Community Bankers of America, as well as the nonprofit National Community Reinvestment Coalition.

Granting trust charters to stablecoin issuers would blur the statutory boundaries of what constitutes a bank, the NCRC said at the time. A license would “provide Connectia with the reputational benefits, enhanced market credibility and federal regulatory status of a banking institution while allowing it to avoid many of the fundamental obligations that justify such privileges,” the consumer advocate said.

For one, a trust would not be forced to comply with the Community Reinvestment Act, as banks are, the NCRC said.

For another, a trust wouldn’t be forced to hold deposit insurance, the ICBA said, creating the risk of consumer “confusion” and “harm” if it becomes insolvent.

“The OCC’s untested receivership framework is wholly unequipped to resolve an uninsured, systemically significant stablecoin issuer like Connectia risking permanent customer losses and market contagion,” the ICBA said in November.

The NCRC flagged what it called “dangerous imbalances” that tilt the playing field if trust charter applications were to be given a green light.

“Approving Connectia’s application would create a two-tier system where digital asset firms receive comparable federal status without comparable public obligations, undermining the integrity of the entire chartering framework,” the organization said.

The BPI, meanwhile, noted the application “raises questions regarding the longstanding ... separation of banking and commerce.”

In a LinkedIn post Wednesday, Roman Goldstein, a senior director at financial services advisory firm Klaros Group, called the Sony venture the “first commercial-conglomerate ecosystem bank.”

“OCC didn't dodge the banking-and-commerce objections, it just said that law permits this integration,” Goldstein wrote.

He also cited the venture’s so-far unusual setup – in that OCC supervises the trust bank but Japan's Financial Services Agency supervises the parent bank.

“A foreign-owned bank with no Fed in the picture,” Goldstein wrote.

The trust charter, though, isn’t the only type of banking license has received pushback for boxing out the Federal Reserve. Some lawmakers and trade groups have objected to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s industrial loan company charter, arguing the license offers companies access to the banking system while avoiding Fed oversight.

Financial arms of multinational conglomerates have more frequently sought ILCs than trust bank charters. Car makers such as Ford, GM and Stellantis have received the FDIC’s conditional approval for ILCs. 

But “every application ultimately turns on whether the regulator is comfortable with the business, risk management, org structure, and management team,” Goldstein wrote.

With that said, the OCC did impose a unique condition on the Sony application: The regulator indicated it may, at any point, require the Sony subsidiary to dedicate a full-time, non-dual-role CFO, Goldstein noted.

During the Sony application’s public comment period, a commenter argued that a national bank can’t “receive in its trust department deposits of current funds subject to check or the deposit of checks, drafts, bills of exchange, or other items for collection or exchange purposes,” adding that clause applies to stablecoins, according to Goldstein.

“OCC replied the [trust bank’s] stablecoins weren’t deposits or checks because they live in a closed loop payment system,” Goldstein wrote, adding, though, that the regulator’s logic “doesn’t address how that prohibition applies to stablecoins on public chains.”

“If [trust banks] can’t issue stablecoins on public chains, then some other kind uninsured national bank must be able to,” Goldstein wrote.