SoFi was among Super Bowl advertisers with another commercial this year; this year's commercial reflected their expanding services by advertising the firm's support for owning a home, starting a family and seeing the world; with the firm's recent acquisition of online bank, Zenbanx, customers will now be able to use SoFi for a comprehensive suite of banking services, expanding beyond just the firm's core student loan offering. Source
There are no shortage of VC firms who have allocated dollars to various fintechs throughout the world. But for individual...
SoFi is advertising job openings in Australia and appears to be planning international expansion of its mortgage lending business; firm has been expanding its mortgage lending in the US, now offering mortgage loans in 27 states; the expansion to Australia would be the first international effort for the P2P lender and one of the first marketplace loan offerings for mortgages in the country. Source
Lend Academy takes a retrospective look at the most important stories for the industry in 2016; regulation was a factor for the industry and 2016 included a white paper from the Treasury with consultation from seven federal agencies governing the financial services industry including the Securities and Exchange Commission, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency proposed its new fintech charter and the Marketplace Lending Association was formed as an advocate for the industry; other highlights included a $50 million investment in US P2P loans from Chinese marketplace lender CreditEase and a leading market position from SoFi. Source
Since Lending Club announced the first bank partnership in 2013 banks have been increasing their involvement in the marketplace lending...
SoFi has acquired Zenbanx which will expand its offerings for clients to digital banking; Zenbanx offers online and mobile banking with international money transfer services and deposits available in multiple currencies; SoFi's CEO Mike Cagney says he expects SoFi to begin offering customers digital banking accounts in the first quarter of 2017; according to a Wall Street Journal source the Zenbanx acquisition was valued at approximately $100 million. Source
PeerIQ analyzes SoFi's new securitization, SCLP 2017-1; SoFi's unsecured consumer loans securitization portfolio was priced on January 20; the securitization was oversubscribed resulting in final collateralized loans of $655 million; the securitization is now the industry's largest securitization portfolio issuance; it included two rated tranches from DBRS and Kroll; tranche A included loans valued at $504 million with an A rating from both DBRS and Kroll; tranche B included loans valued at $60 million with a BBB rating from both DBRS and Kroll. Source
The online lender is now able to originate mortgages in 27 states, with hopes of expanding to all 50 soon; included in their announcement about the New York license was overall originations reached $1 billion in December, $100 million of which were mortgages; SoFi Chief Revenue Officer Michael Tannenbaum said, "The plan is to continue to roll out a state licensing strategy, our licensing strategy mirrored places where there were large jumbo balances."; SoFi also believes their cross buying strategy and the $1 billion infusion from SoftBank has helped them weather the storm of the last year; in a separate announcement, the online lender has moved their office to 860 Washington Street in New York's Meatpacking District. Source
Many of us in this industry will be glad to see the last of 2016. It has been a difficult...
In a recent interview, SoFi CEO Mike Cagney stated, "We feel very confident that in 2017 you'll be able to have a SoFi bank account with a debit and/or credit card."; further details are not known on how SoFi plans to offer deposit accounts; Cagney stated the company is working on two or three initiatives; back in July Cagney told investors that getting a traditional bank license was not a viable solution; the company may be able to leverage the OCC's recently announced nonbank fintech charter. Source