- Key insight: the online bank SoFi is expanding its dollar-backed stablecoin to all of its 15 million members.
- Forward look: SoFi also plans to launch tokenized deposits in the coming weeks.
- Expert quote: FS Vector's Emily Goodman says launching retail access to stablecoins and tokenized deposits in tandem allows SoFi to combine the benefits of both.
SoFi Technologies has officially expanded its in-house U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin offering to all of its customers.
The lender-turned-digital bank announced on Wednesday that its natively issued stablecoin, SoFiUSD, is now available for any of its nearly 15 million members to buy, sell, hold and convert within its mobile banking app.
"At SoFi, we believe we can combine the speed and versatility of the blockchain with the trust of a bank to improve how money moves around the world," SoFi CEO Anthony Noto said in a statement. "People no longer have to choose between blockchain technology and regulated banking products. With SoFiUSD we're giving our members a single place to buy, hold and pay with digital assets in the same app they already use to save, spend, borrow and invest."
SoFiUSD was previously available to enterprise customers through its
In the coming weeks, according to a company statement, SoFi plans to rapidly add to its digital asset product offering by building the ability for SoFi members to convert SoFiUSD into tokenized deposits. This will allow members to earn interest and access FDIC insurance on said deposits, since stablecoins are currently not FDIC-insured and the status of
"While stablecoins and tokenized deposits are both digital representations of fiat currency, they are structurally distinct with unique advantages and features," Emily Goodman, partner at fintech consulting firm FS Vector, told American Banker. "Stablecoins, for example, offer interoperability across blockchains that tokenized deposits generally don't. Tokenized deposits integrate with the banking system [in a way] that stablecoins don't."
Launching retail access to stablecoins and tokenized deposits in tandem, according to Goodman, allows SoFi to combine the benefits of stablecoin payments with the consumer protections and yield features of traditional banking through tokenized deposit conversions.
"Bringing both products under one roof also creates operational and compliance efficiencies that would be more difficult to achieve separately," she said.
SoFiUSD is redeemable 1:1 for U.S. dollars from SoFi Bank. According to a company statement, SoFi is maintaining liquid assets to support all outstanding stablecoins issued.
SoFiUSD is currently available on the Ethereum and Solana distributed ledgers, and the company has expressed plans to add additional networks in the future.
"For retail customers, the side-by-side model is the most complete solution," Nick Elledge, co-founder of digital asset infrastructure platform Stablecore, told American Banker. "[They can] spend with the stablecoin and save with the insured deposit. And, like a package on your doorstep, most customers won't care which carrier delivered it — only that it arrived quickly, reliably and cheaply."
The stablecoin was one of the first to be natively issued by a de novo bank, according to the company, even as various financial firms are issuing stablecoins through partnerships and
Also on Wednesday, a decentralized finance company offering synthetic dollar protocols called Falcon Finance announced the launch of a U.S. dollar payment stablecoin issued by Anchorage Digital Bank called fUSD.
Both SoFi and Anchorage attribute the launches to their bank charters and to the regulatory guidelines set by the GENIUS Act, a stablecoin regulation bill passed last summer.
Anchorage CEO Nathan McCauley said in a statement that "fUSD is built from the ground up for institutional use, and that's only possible because of our federal bank charter."
