SoFi is gearing up to make some huge updates in 2022 including more competitive interest rates,
an updated interface, and even offering some brand new products to their already
impressive lineup of incredible financial tools so today let's breakdown every change that is coming
up so that you know what to expect from SoFi this year. Alright let's jump right into it.
What is going on everyone I hope you're all having a fantastic day. So last week
we talked about some huge news that SoFi recently announced and how that impacted SoFi’s stock price
but I realized that not everyone is interested in investing in SoFi and simply wants to know
what this means for the SoFi platform from a user's perspective. So if you don't yet have
SoFi and you'd like to give it a shot there is a link in the description below where you can
sign up and get $50 for free so definitely check that out but let's get started with some of these
major updates. So the huge piece of news that was announced a few weeks ago is that SoFi finally
received regulatory approval for their national banking charter. So we looked at the impact that
this announcement had on SoFi stock price last week but from a user's perspective, this might
not seem like a huge deal but trust me it is. As you might already know, up until this point
SoFi was really just a technology company hence the name SoFi technologies incorporated and they
actually partnered with a number of partner banks who are the ones who took care of the backdoor
nuances of actually being a bank. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that and actually,
a majority of these financial technology companies are set up in the exact same way. However,
by receiving their national banking charter, this means that SoFi will not just be providing the
flashy user interface and technology but is now actually the bank behind their products.
But again you may be asking who cares. Well, what this means is SoFi has essentially removed the
middleman from the equation because they now no longer have to go through those partner banks in
order to access the funds and interest rates that are made available and set by the Federal Reserve.
And by removing that middleman, that means that they are able to offer higher interest rates on
their banking products, and more competitive lower interest rates on their lending products. Not
to mention the fact that this also gives them the ability to launch some brand new products
that were previously not available to them which we'll talk more about in a second.
SoFi’s the CEO Anthony Noto said “This incredible milestone elevates our ability to help even more
people get their money right and realize their ambitions With a National Bank charter not only
will we be able to lend at even more competitive interest rates and provide our members with high
yielding interest in checking and savings, it will also enhance our financial products and services
to ensure they efficiently meet the needs of our members, business partners, and communities across
the country while continuing to uphold a high bar of regulatory standards and compliance.” There's
a lot to unpack there but the first thing that really sticks out to me is the fact that he said
high yield interest on checking and savings and this is actually the first new product lineup that
I believe SoFi is going to launch in the coming months. So if you currently have SoFi you may
know that the SoFi money account is really a hybrid platform that is a blend of your checking
and savings account and these two things are not separated. Now you do currently have SoFi vaults
which is sort of like a savings account and that vaults feature is not going anywhere but based on
the statement I just read you and a blog posted by SoFi just a few days ago, it looks like they are
gearing up to launch separate checking and savings accounts for easy budgeting. Personally, I'm a
huge fan of this because I already used these SoFi vaults as my savings account but I'm curious what
you think of this down in the comments section and whether you'd prefer to have a separate checking
or savings account or if you'd just like to keep the hybrid acount as it currently is. Regardless
of how you feel about that the other great news that so if I had announced a few days ago
is they are already planning to raise interest rates to 1% APY on a checking and savings balances
when you have direct deposit set up which I will show you how to do in a second. Now we've
seen interest rates on checking and savings accounts slowly start to rise in recent weeks
since the Federal Reserve has made it clear that they do plan on raising interest rates in 2022
but again the fact that SoFi has removed that middleman and now is able to directly access those
interest rates that are set by the Federal Reserve means that they are already taking there .25%
interest rate all the way up to 1% and who knows those rates might continue to rise throughout
the year. Now there's a few important things down in the fine print that I do want to point
out in regard to those interest rates. First of all the 1% APY is only on your first $50,000 of
balances however it does say that you can have a cumulative balance of $150,000 in your SoFi vaults
and all of those funds will also earn 1% APY and chances are most of us will probably fall under
those thresholds anyways so 1% on that amount of money is pretty awesome. Another important thing
to keep in mind is that previously SoFi offered $1.5 million in FDIC insurance because they had
multiple partner banks who were each able to offer $250,000 of FDIC insurance. However since SoFi
is now their own bank, they are only able to offer the standards $250,000 in FDIC insurance
so again not really relevant unless you have a ton of cash sitting around but just something I
wanted to mention. It does also say that members who do not have direct deposit will only earn
0.25% on their account balances so this probably goes without saying but you definitely want to
set up direct deposit through your SoFi account for a number of reasons including earning that
higher interest rate. Thankfully doing this is super easy and can be done right from your
smartphone so let's hop inside these SoFi app and I'll show you how to set up direct deposit.
There we go it really is just that easy and you're now able to automatically budget your direct
deposit funds, get paid early, and earn 1% APY once that update is made available to the public.
On SoFi’s blog they also mention that they'll be adding a new automated savings features and
a better banking and user-friendly interface so it's a little unclear what exactly that will
look like at the moment but it looks like they're planning on rolling out these features pretty soon
so it definitely keep an eye out for an update to the SoFi app and again if you haven't signed
up for SoFi be sure to use the link down in the description below and set up direct
deposit so that you can take full advantage of all of these fantastic updates. That's
everything that's SoFi has announced for the time being but their strategic acquisition of
Golden Pacific Bank Corp which is a small local bank that SoFi acquired last year
shows that they are operating in the fast lane and the fact that they were able to get regulatory
approval in such a short time period is really impressive and I don't think they're going to wait
very long to start launching these new features and possibly other features that they haven't even
announced yet. I've said this before but I would love to see them add a business banking option
but again with these new changes the sky is really the limit for SoFi and I cannot wait to see what
they come up with next. So I'd love to know what you think of these updates and SoFi’s new
national banking charter down in the comment section below and what features you would like
to see them add going forward. Again if you do not yet have SoFi and you
want to sign up I will leave that link in the description below where you can sign up and get
$50 for free when you open and fund your account and sometimes they're also offering cash bonuses
for setting up direct deposit so again be sure to take care of that and who knows you might
get some free money from that as well. As always if you did get value out of this content and you
want to help support me the easiest way to do that is by checking out some of my
favorite financial tools down in the description below and of course be sure to hit like button
and subscribe the channel for more content like this in the future. As always thank you so much
for your time I really do appreciate it so much take it easy and I'll see you in the next one!