CBA Statement On Regulatory Approval Of SoFi Technologies’ Acquisition Of Golden Pacific Bancorp

January 19, 2022

Consumer Bankers Association President and CEO Richard Hunt today released the following statement after federal regulators approved SoFi Technologies’ acquisition of Golden Pacific Bancorp, Inc. and its wholly owned subsidiary Golden Pacific Bank, N.A., which has a national bank charter issued by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC):

“We commend SoFi for assuming the broad oversight requirements of a federally-chartered financial institution, including safety-and-soundness regulation and supervision by federal prudential regulators, as well as a commitment to reinvesting in our communities, as America’s leading banks have done for decades. We also commend leading regulators for helping ensure every American family receives the high level of protections they deserve, regardless of where they go to meet their financial needs.

“As the banking industry rapidly evolves, CBA has strongly advocated for leading regulators to ensure every American family receives the high level of protections they deserve, including urging the CFPB to address consumer harm in the growing fintech lending market. We hope other fintechs will follow SoFi’s example and voluntarily comply with the same regulatory responsibilities our nation’s well-regulated and well-supervised banks have abided by for more than a decade as many of them pursue a national charter.

SoFi joins the handful of fintechs whose bank charter applications have received regulatory approval. These include LendingClub, which acquired Radius Bancorp, Varo, which received approval from the OCC, and Square Financial Services, which received approval from the FDIC and the Utah Department of Financial Institutions. 

Background

In a letter sent in October to CFPB Director Chopra, CBA President & CEO Richard Hunt specifically urged the Bureau to mitigate the growing risk of consumer harm in the under-regulated fintech lending market by issuing a larger participant rule. You can read the full letter HERE.

Additionally, in an October op-ed in American Banker, Hunt stated why the regulatory disparity in the consumer lending market should alarm policymakers whose broad oversight reforms following the 2008 financial crisis were conceived before the word “fintech” was ever in their lexicon. You can read the full op-ed HERE.