Anthony Noto Archives - Lend Academy

SoFi Applies for a National Bank Charter

The leading fintech has filed a de novo bank application with the OCC this week

July 9, 2020 By Peter Renton Leave a Comment

SoFi CEO Anthony Noto speaking at LendIt Fintech USA

SoFi has become the latest fintech to apply for a full national bank charter. They filed a de novo bank application with the OCC on Wednesday.

You may remember that back in 2017, when co-founder Mike Cagney was still CEO, that SoFi applied for an industrial loan charter. They pulled the plug on that application a few months later after Cagney resigned from the company.

The interesting difference is that SoFi has decided to pursue a full bank charter this time rather than the ILC as they did before and as fellow fintech Square has done. Of course, it could be that ILCs are somewhat controversial, with many banks, large and small, opposing their very existence.

I reached out to SoFi today and they responded back with this official statement:

We can confirm that SoFi has formally submitted an application to the OCC for a proposed de novo national bank, SoFi Bank, National Association. We look forward to working closely with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, as well as with the Fed and FDIC, as they review our application.

CEO Anthony Noto had this to say:

SoFi is on a mission to help our members achieve financial independence to realize their ambitions. We firmly believe that by pursuing a national bank charter, we will be able to help even more people get their money right with enhanced value and more products and services.

SoFi will no doubt be leaning on the experience of Varo, the digital bank that is three years ahead of SoFi on this journey, having filed with the OCC in the summer of 2017. They are still waiting for final approval from the OCC (the FDIC has given their approval) . Hopefully, SoFi will not have to wait three years before getting their approval as they should be able to follow a similar playbook. The other fintech that has applied for a full banking charter is Robinhood, a company that has been in the news for many of the wrong reasons lately. LendingClub decided to go down the acquisition route as they announced in February that they intend to acquire Radius Bank.

One advantage that SoFi has now is that Brian Brooks, the new Acting head of the OCC, is intimately familiar with fintech, having previously been on the board of Avant. FDIC Chairman Jelena McWilliams is also very innovation minded, so for the first time the heads of both banking regulators are very reform minded and SoFi should receive a more receptive audience for their ideas.

For any non-bank the big advantage of getting a banking license is that it should lead to a cheaper cost of capital. Today, SoFi has to get bank funding lines to finance their loans but a bank charter will allow them to offer deposits directly. Right now, anyone can open a SoFi Money account which accepts deposits but that account is officially a cash management account with deposits being held with SoFi’s partner banks. This obviously has a cost involved and SoFi cannot lend this capital directly.

Another benefit is lending licenses. SoFi does not work with a partner bank to originate loans, instead it has obtained consumer and mortgage lending licenses separately in every state where it is required. National banks can lend with just one license simplifying the licensing process. Now, there is obviously a much bigger compliance burden overall when becoming a national bank.

The entire industry will be watching SoFi’s progress here with great interest. It is clear that fintech leaders are moving towards offering more bank-like features and many will likely end up becoming banks themselves (or be acquired by a bank). By applying to become a bank SoFi is cementing their position as a fintech leader and one that will continue to blaze their own trail as fintech goes mainstream.

SoFi Acquires Naming Rights to New NFL Stadium in LA

Leading fintech company, SoFi, has secured the naming rights for 20 years to the new stadium being built in Los Angeles

September 16, 2019 By Peter Renton Leave a Comment

The rumors that have been flowing for many months have been confirmed. Leading fintech company, SoFi, has acquired naming rights to the new NFL stadium being built in Los Angeles. The stadium, opening in 2020, will be home for NFL teams the LA Rams and LA Chargers. The company announced the decision in a blog post yesterday.

While SoFi would not comment officially on the amount they are paying, Bloomberg is reporting that SoFi is paying more than $30 million a year over 20 years. This is supposedly a record deal for naming rights for a sport stadium and the new stadium will be the most expensive ever built.

In this interview on CNBC SoFi CEO Anthony Noto said that the annual cost of the naming rights will be less than 10% of their total marketing budget and less than 5% of their overall budget. SoFi will be the only private, venture backed company with their name on an NFL Stadium. Noto has a history with the NFL serving as their CFO ten years ago, so he has experience being on the other side of the negotiating table during discussions for naming rights for NFL stadiums. This should have helped him in this negotiation.

The new stadium will be called SoFi Stadium (yes, it already has a Wikipedia page) and it will host the home games of both the LA Rams and the LA Chargers. In addition to these NFL games the stadium will host Superbowl LVI in 2022, the college football national championship in 2023, potentially some World Cup soccer games in 2026 and the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympic Games in 2028.

My Take

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SoFi’s Latest Product Called “SoFi Money” is Here

SoFi Money is SoFi's take on a traditional bank account but with some cool new features

June 20, 2018 By Ryan Lichtenwald 2 Comments

There has been a lot of anticipation for SoFi‘s banking product. Not only does it round out SoFi’s product set nicely, but it also marks an important milestone for the fintech industry the US. After scrapping plans to pursue a federal charter, the company sought out state licenses. They strategically pursued state licenses in states which were important for them to reach scale. SoFi Money officially launched in beta yesterday with a nice write up in Fast Company.

With the addition to current accounts, SoFi now offers a majority of the financial products that customers seek including wealth management, insurance, personal loans, mortgages and of course, student loans. The reason for using the term current account is because the new offering isn’t explicitly a savings account or a checking account. SoFi has decided to roll up these historically two products into one account which includes a debit card, but also pays a higher interest rate than most banks.

At time of writing, SoFi is paying 1.1% on their account which is a competitive rate when you consider that it is a hybrid account. Other banks who continuously offer the highest rates available on the market such as Goldman Sachs’ Marcus are currently paying around 1.7% on savings accounts. The largest banks in the US such as Bank of America, Citi and JP Morgan Chase pay between 0.01% and 0.1% on savings accounts which varies depending on deposit amounts and current promotions.

Many of the features you’d expect are also available such as peer to peer payments and mobile check deposit. The full list from their website is included below.

Keeping with the theme of simplicity, SoFi charges no account fees. Looking through SoFi’s pages dedicated to their new product I found a laundry list of everything they don’t charge for. The only fees you can incur are service fees which include an additional replacement card (after you’ve used up one free replacement card), charges related to wire transfers, stop payments, “statement & research – legal processing” and ATM fees (after being reimbursed up to six times per month for ATM charges).

Conclusion

SoFi is a trailblazer when it comes to innovation in financial services. Over the years the company has built up a huge member base of 500,000 users. With SoFi Money, SoFi will become even more entrenched in the financial lives of their users as they interact on a daily basis. This is just the initial launch of SoFi Money and access will be open to all members later in the year. Noto hinted that they plan to use machine learning and data analytics to benchmark users to their peers and also provide recommendations to their member base.

Below is the official promo video for SoFi Money Beta:

SoFi Seeking Out Heavy Hitters for CEO Role

Anthony Noto, COO of Twitter, has been offered the position as SoFi CEO.

January 22, 2018 By Ryan Lichtenwald Leave a Comment

Update (1/23/2018): SoFi issued a press release officially announcing Anthony Noto as their new Chief Executive Officer effective March 1, 2018.

Back in September, 2017 we reported that Mike Cagney had stepped down as SoFi CEO. The company has since been on the search for a new CEO. Over the weekend multiple news outlets reported that Anthony Noto, an executive from Twitter, was in discussions with SoFi. Noto currently serves as Twitter’s Chief Operations Officer and helped take the company public.

The Wall Street Journal article noted that people close to him believe he wants to lead a company. While none of this is official it shows that SoFi is seeking out some pretty big names. Noto would bring some high level experience of running a tech company but he is also someone very comfortable in finance given his years at Goldman Sachs.

From the outside it seems like SoFi is continuing to execute on their strategy. Just last week we shared that SoFi issued the largest ever marketplace lending securitization in both consumer and student loans in the fourth quarter. The only apparent hiccup from the company since the news of Cagney leaving was pulling their application for a bank charter.

SoFi’s story to me is one of the most interesting in fintech. They are different from any other US fintech company and haven’t been afraid to try new things. I believe there is still enormous potential for the company to serve consumers in all aspects of their financial lives. Once a new CEO is chosen it is going to be interesting to see the focus areas are for the company.