Sony Bank, Inc. (ソニー銀行株式会社) is a Japanese commercial bank established in April 2001. It operates as a direct bank and has no physical branches or ATMs. It is one of the largest online banks in Japan and a subsidiary of Sony Financial Holdings, the financial business unit of the multinational conglomerate Sony Group Corporation. Its main business is offering online banking with foreign currency deposits, investment trusts, and home loans.
History
A reduction in regulations in Japan at the end of the 1990s encouraged a number of companies to enter the banking sector for the first time.[2]
Sony faced challenges as it began Sony Bank. In 2001, when Sony Bank was founded, Web use was limited in Japan as compared with the United States.[3] Only 24 million people used the Internet every month at that time.[3]