Coinbase and San Francisco-located online lending company, SoFi, are partnering on a new trading “initiative”. SoFi plans to let its users trade cryptocurrencies on its platform with the help of Coinbase’s partnership. The news comes from CNBC.
The new feature will be made available to SoFi’s clients on the SoFi Invest platform. The project is expected to go live after March, 2019. In addition to the trading feature, users will get to choose from a whole new portfolio of services that SoFi is going to launch in the first half of 2019.
According to the CNBC post, this is what the CEO of SoFi, Anthony Noto, said:
Our target audience wants to see what the price of cryptocurrency is, and to buy it. They have a desire to do that and in many cases they already are.
The CEO also believes that despite the recent ups and downs and general volatility of the industry, people want to buy digital coins. There is no clarity yet as to which coins SoFi will offer to its customers. All users will be able to buy and sell cryptocurrencies through Coinbase.
SoFi actually stands for social finance. The company was founded in 2011 with the major goal to refinance student loans. Recently valued at around $4.5 billion, SoFi has expanded its portfolio of services and now offers users mortgage loans, wealth management services, personal loans, etc. According to info from PitchBook, the company has raised approximately $2 billion from prominent investors such as Peter Thiel.