Social Finance has been granted a bitlicense by the New York State Department of Financial Services, clearing the way for customers in that state to trade cryptocurrencies through the company’s new digital assets platform.
SoFi, based in San Francisco, is the ninth company to get the OK from regulators to operate a virtual currency business in New York. SoFi is best known for refinancing student loans, but it has added more personal finance services over the last year.
“This approval is a testament to our ongoing commitment to earn the trust of regulators and stakeholders as we try to offer [investment clients] more choice for products and services across the country,” SoFi CEO Anthony Noto said in a press release Tuesday.
SoFi entered cryptocurrency trading in September as part of its SoFi Invest platform, which also provides robo advice and trading in stocks and exchange-traded funds. But it could not offer crypto trades in New York without the bitlicense.
Customers have opened more than 100,000 SoFi Invest accounts nationally, a company spokeswoman says. It does not break down account numbers by state, so it is unclear how many of those are in New York.
Other companies that have been granted a virtual currency license in New York are BitFlyer, BitPay, Coinbase, Circle, Genesis Global Trading, XRP II, Square and Xapo.
