PS2 Banking

Sony is teaming up with U.S. investment bank J.P. Morgan and Japan's Sakura Bank to create an online bank accessible from the Playstation 2 console. Sony will contribute 80 percent of bank's $356 million start-up capital, while Sakura will add 16 percent and J.P. Morgan four percent. The Playstation 2 bank will begin by offering deposits and bill paying, but plans include offering services such as mortgages and loans. Sony made other moves to strengthen it's online content offerings, in part by housing Sony Music Entertainment and Sony Pictures Entertainment in a new holding company called Sony Broadband Entertainment. The new holding company will seek to ways to improve content distribution across multiple media and will examine strategic alliances. "This [will] stamp out speculation that we may sell the U.S. entertainment units, and shows our strong commitment in reinforcing the content businesses," said Sony President Nobuyuki Idei.