These features could help bring new customers into the growing ecosystem.
After a nearly two-year hiatus from the cryptocurrency industry, banking and finance app SoFi (NASDAQ: SOFI) recently announced that it will be getting back into the crypto market, and in an even bigger way than before.
SoFi made two specific announcements. First, it reported the return of crypto trading to its app — a service it had offered until late 2023. Second, the bank announced that it would leverage the capabilities of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology to facilitate rapid international money transfers. And perhaps most importantly, SoFi called this the “first of many planned crypto and blockchain innovations across [their] products and services.” Both of these newly announced capabilities are expected to launch later in 2025.
When it comes to cross-border money transfers, the goal is to create a more seamless and low-cost experience than currently exists in the market. And with the return of crypto trading, SoFi’s goal is to gradually expand the platform, including offering stablecoins, allowing members to borrow against cryptocurrencies, and introducing staking features.
The goal is to equip the SoFi app with more financial service capabilities than any other app. But will crypto and its related capabilities become a major revenue driver that will move the stock?
To clarify, SoFi used to offer cryptocurrency trading in its app but closed it down a few years ago, mainly due to potential regulatory issues involving chartered banks providing cryptocurrency services to customers. This is also why you generally haven’t seen any major banks roll out cryptocurrency trading platforms of their own.
Specifically, SoFi became a bank in January 2022, and as part of the approval process, it was forced to refrain from engaging in any cryptocurrency-related activities without specific approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).
However, SoFi says that clarification provided by the OCC recently makes it practical for nationally chartered banks to “provide crypto custody and execution services on behalf of customers, hold dollar deposits serving as reserves backing stablecoins in certain circumstances, engage in certain stablecoin activities to facilitate payment transactions, and more.”
