SoFi Officially Acquires Golden Pacific Bancorp, Becomes SoFi Bank
phones with the SoFi app

SoFi Officially Acquires Golden Pacific Bancorp, Becomes SoFi Bank

Whether you’re a FinTech observer or an everyday American, you’ve probably heard the name “SoFi” a lot lately. For the latter group, that’s likely because this year’s Super Bowl is set to be held at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles. Yet, outside of that high-profile naming rights deal, the startup has continued to make headlines as it grows and expands. On that note, this week, the company took a major step forward by officially becoming a bank.

SoFi has now completed its acquisition of Sacramento-based Golden Pacific Bancorp, which will now be known as SoFi Bank. The plan to acquire Pacific Bancorp was announced nearly one year ago, with the deal costing SoFi approximately $22.3 million. While SoFi will invest $750 million to grow the bank’s digital presence, it notes that it will also still operate Golden Pacific Bank’s three brick-and-mortar branch locations in Sacramento, Live Oak, and Yuba City, California.

According to SoFi, following the acquisition, it now plans to offer customers 1% APY on their funds. Currently, their SoFi Money hybrid account earns 0.25% APY following multiple interest rate cuts in recent years. Additionally, the platform will forgo its hybrid status to offer separate checking and savings accounts going forward while also teasing a “more user-friendly interface.” These changes are expected to take place in the coming weeks, although no specific timeline was announced.

In a press release detailing the completed purchase, SoFi CEO Anthony Noto said, “This announcement reflects SoFi’s ongoing mission to help people achieve financial independence and realize their ambitions. Through this acquisition, Golden Pacific Bank members can expect an elevated digital and more robust mobile banking experience to serve local businesses and individual customers.”

Virginia Varela, Golden Pacific Bank’s President and CEO, added, “This new partnership will enhance our ability to provide the highest level of service while offering our customers a suite of products designed to help them get their money right. I look forward to working hand in hand with our new team as we continue to deepen our community banking experience in Sacramento and surrounding counties.”

Of course, SoFi isn’t the first major FinTech to become a national bank via acquisition. For example, in 2019, LendingClub purchased Radius Bank, renamed to LendingClub Bank. Meanwhile, Varo Bank became the first digital banking service to obtain a national banking charter in 2019, which it did without acquiring an existing bank. Despite this, the advent of SoFi Bank is still a major moment for FinTech and for the company itself. Considering that SoFi had already branched out into several aspects of finance even without a banking charter, it will be fascinating to see where the company takes its ambitions from here.

Leave a Reply

The "Email" field is empty, you must enter some text to proceed.The text you entered in the "Email" field appears to be invalid, please edit it and try again
Get the Latest News Delivered to Your Inbox
Travelers with two Best Western Credit Cards

Best Western Debuts Two New Rewards Credit Cards

After pausing applications for their previous rewards card, the hotel chain Best Western has unveiled a new pair of rewards credit cards with a new issuer. About the Best Western cards: Best Western is partnering with First Bank & Trust and Mercury Financial to introduce two new co-branded credit cards. First up is the no-annual-fee Best Western Rewards Visa Signature Card. With this card, customers can 4x points on Best...
Marriott Bonvoy card and a woman on vacation

Marriott Bonvoy Bold Card Launches Travel Contest

Chase and Marriott Bonoy have unveiled a special contest while continuing to offer its best-ever welcome bonus. About the welcome bonus and Bold Chat Court Contest: Marriott Bonvoy and Chase have launched a special opportunity called the Bold Chat Court contest. As part of this contest, 10 lucky travelers will be awarded 500,000 Marriott Bonvoy points (for a total of 5 million) as well as $5,000. For this contest, the...
Bilt and All Reward logos

Bilt Adds 2 New Transfer Partners Including First 3:2 Transfer Rate

Bilt is once again expanding its travel transfer rewards program — and is even breaking the mold with one new partner. About the new additions to Bilt: This week, Bilt launched partnerships with two more travel brands: TAP Air Portugal and Accor. As a result, Bilt members will now be able to transfer their points to Miles&Go and ALL Reward, respectively. In total, Bilt now has 18 transfer partners including 13...
Fioney Top 10 Must-Read Personal Finance Articles Septemeber 2024

Top 10 Personal Finance Articles of the Month — September 2024

Welcome to Fioney's look at the top 10 personal finance articles of the month. On the first Friday of each new month, we look back at some of our favorite posts published in the weeks prior and highlight them right here. This includes a mix of sites that have become staples of our lists as well as many first-timers. To start things off this month, we'll look at some articles...

2024 SoFi Checking and Savings Review

Ever since I started taking an interest in the FinTech sector, one company whose name I’ve seen pop up over and over again is SoFi. Lately it seems as though that theme has been sent into overdrive as the company has not only become a household name thanks to its stadium naming rights deal but also because of the company’s continued product expansions. The most interesting development in my mind...