FinTech News
SoFi Introduces New Weekly Dividend ETF $WKLY
Over the past few years, SoFi has continually kept things interesting by debuting new features and products at a rapid clip. Now they’re at it again, adding another exchange traded fund to its line-up. This week, SoFi introduced its latest ETF: the SoFi Weekly Dividend ETF ($WKLY). With this ETF, shareholders will receive weekly dividend distributions — or so the ETF intends. As the FinTech explains, “Securities selected for the index have maintained their dividend payments over the past five years and met a number of additional screens designed to remove companies at risk of reducing their dividend payouts.” The new ETF will not only be available to SoFi Invest customers but will also be tradable on other brokerage platforms. It currently has an expense ratio of 0.49%.
SoFi rolled out its own ETFs back in 2019 with the debuts of the SoFi Select 500 ETF ($SFY) and SoFi Next 500 ETF ($SFYX). Since then, the company has also introduced innovative options including the SoFi Gig Economy ETF ($GIGE) and SoFi Social 50 ETF ($SFYF). Additionally, last year, the firm premiered the SoFi Weekly Income ETF with the clever ticker symbol $TGIF.
While the $TGIF ETF may sound similar to the new $WKLY ETF, there are some important differences. First, $TGIF is comprised of bonds whereas $WKLY is an equity-based ETF. Also notable is that the former is actively managed, while the latter is passively managed. Finally, true to its name, $TGIF distributes payments on Fridays while $WKLY’s payments will be made on Thursdays.
The new ETF is the latest addition to SoFi’s growing investment line-up. Last month, the firm announced that SoFi Invest customers would soon be able to participate in initial public offerings by requesting shares/units of companies. To be eligible for this benefit, customers will need to have at least $3,000 across their SoFi Invest accounts, with available shares being allocated to buyers based on a number of factors. Announcing the feature, SoFi CEO Anthony Noto stated, “IPO Investing reflects our continued effort to make investing more accessible, by pioneering fractional shares, offering commission-free trading, creating unique SoFi-branded ETFs, and now, IPO investing.”
Once again, SoFi has shown why it’s one of the largest and most-watched FinTechs in the sector. Of course, with this latest move, it’s not only growing its own trading platform but opening its unique ideas to those using any brokerage account. Meanwhile, considering that the first Thursday of $WKLY’s existence has yet to occur, it will be interesting to see how SoFi’s plan for weekly distributions works out and what level of dividend income investors can expect. We’ll just have to stay tuned.
