OCC gives Sony Bank conditional OK for U.S. stablecoin bank

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted Sony Bank conditional approval to form a U.S.-chartered trust bank that would issue a dollar-backed stablecoin. The authorization would allow the Japanese lender, part of Sony Financial Group, to establish a trust entity in the United States to create and manage a digital token pegged to the U.S. dollar.

Under the conditional approval, the proposed trust bank would hold customer assets, custody fiat reserves and run the infrastructure to issue and redeem a stablecoin under U.S. banking rules. The token would be designed to keep parity with the U.S. dollar by holding reserves in dollar-denominated assets or cash equivalents.

Conditional approvals require applicants to meet supervisory, governance, capital and anti-money-laundering requirements before a charter is finalized. The OCC charters and supervises national banks and federal savings associations and reviews trust-charter applications.

Regulators have focused on reserve transparency, clear redemption rights and operational controls for dollar-backed tokens. A U.S. trust bank charter is one route firms have pursued to provide a regulated foundation for issuing tokenized dollars.

Sony Bank must satisfy the OCC conditions and any applicable state or federal rules related to issuing and redeeming tokenized dollar liabilities before stablecoin issuance can begin. The approval places Sony Bank among other financial firms seeking regulated pathways to issue dollar-linked digital tokens.