Item 1. Legal Proceedings
In limited instances, the Company may be subject to a variety of claims and lawsuits in the ordinary course of business. Regardless of the final outcome, defending lawsuits, claims, government investigations, and proceedings in which we are involved is costly and can impose a significant burden on management and employees, and there can be no assurances that we will receive favorable final outcomes.
Galileo Class Action Litigation. Galileo is a defendant in a putative class action, captioned as Richards, et. al v. Chime Financial, Inc., Galileo Financial Technologies and The Bancorp, Inc., Civil Action No. 4:19-cv-6864-HSG (N.D. Cal.), filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in October 2019. Plaintiff asserts various claims against the defendants arising from an intermittent disruption in service experienced by certain holders of Chime Financial, Inc. (“Chime”) deposit accounts preventing them from accessing or using account funds for portions of time between October 16, 2019 and October 19, 2019. The parties have entered into a class action settlement agreement to resolve the claims in the action. In May 2021, the United States District Court Northern District of California granted a motion for final approval of the class action settlement. In June 2021, an appeal was filed to the final order approving the settlement in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit by a pro se putative class member. That appeal is pending. See Note 14 to the Notes to Unaudited Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements for additional information on this matter.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (the “CFPB”) is also conducting investigations into whether Chime deposit customers were harmed by Galileo in connection with the intermittent service disruption covering several time periods. We may in the future be subject to additional lawsuits and disputes. We are also involved in other claims, government investigations, and proceedings arising from the ordinary course of our business. Although the results of such lawsuits, claims, government investigations and proceedings cannot be predicted with certainty, we do not believe that the final outcome of these other matters will have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, or results of operations.
Juarez et al v. SoFi Lending Corp. SoFi Lending Corp. and SoFi (collectively, the “SoFi Defendants”) are defendants in a putative class action, captioned as Juarez v. Social Finance, Inc. et al., Civil Action No. 4:20-cv-03386-HSG, filed against them in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in May 2020. Plaintiffs, who are conditional permanent residents or Deferred Access for Childhood Arrival (“DACA”) holders, allege that the SoFi Defendants engaged in unlawful lending discrimination in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1981 and California Civil Code, § 51, et seq., through policies and practices by making such categories of applicants ineligible for loans or eligible only with a co-signer who is a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident. Plaintiffs further allege that the SoFi Defendants violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act, by accessing the credit reports of non-United States citizen loan applicants who hold green cards with a validity period of less than two years without a permissible purpose. As relief, Plaintiffs seek, on behalf of themselves and a purported class of similarly-situated non-United States citizen loan applicants, a declaratory judgment that the challenged policies and practices violate federal and state law, an injunction against future violations, actual and statutory damages, exemplary and punitive damages, and attorneys’ fees. The SoFi Defendants filed a motion to, among other things, dismiss Plaintiffs’ claims for failure to state a claim, and/or compel arbitration. By order dated April 12, 2021, the court dismissed Plaintiffs’ California Civil Code, § 51 claim without prejudice, and denied the SoFi Defendants’ motion to dismiss the remaining counts. The matter is now in discovery. We cannot reasonably estimate an amount of loss or range of possible loss associated with this matter.
SoFi Wealth Consent Agreement. We and the staff of the SEC Division of Enforcement have agreed in principle to an offer of settlement, without admitting or denying the SEC’s findings, which includes, among other things, a civil penalty of $300 thousand, to close a pending investigation of SoFi Wealth for alleged violations of Section 206(2) and Section 206(4) of the Investment Advisers Act and Rule 206(4)-7 thereunder by SoFi Wealth. The SEC staff’s allegations relate to actions undertaken by SoFi Wealth in April 2019 to rebalance certain holdings of unaffiliated exchange traded funds (“ETFs”) in clients’ automated investment advisory accounts with holdings of SoFi-branded ETFs which had lower operating expense ratios sponsored and managed by an affiliate of SoFi Wealth. In particular, although SoFi Wealth had disclosed to clients in its Form ADV that it could use affiliated ETFs, such as SoFi-branded ETFs, in the automated investment advisory accounts, the SEC staff alleges that SoFi Wealth also should have disclosed certain alleged conflicts of interest concerning use of the SoFi-branded ETFs: specifically that SoFi Wealth preferred to use the SoFi-branded ETFs, because SoFi expected to receive a marketing benefit from use of the SoFi-branded ETFs, and that the automated investment advisory accounts would be an important early source of assets in connection with the launch of the SoFi-branded ETFs.
The offer of settlement is subject to formal acceptance by the SEC and could change, and a final settlement cannot be assured. By its current terms, and without admitting or denying the SEC staff’s findings, SoFi Wealth would agree to the following: a censure, an order to cease-and-desist from future violations of Section 206(2), Section 206(4), and Rule 206(4)-7, a civil penalty of $300 thousand, and undertakings to review all relevant disclosure documents, to review SoFi Wealth’s
compliance policies and to notify clients concerning the terms of the prospective order. The offer of settlement would not require any disgorgement to customers by SoFi Wealth. We do not believe such a resolution, if accepted by the SEC, would result in any material limitations on the ongoing business or operations of SoFi or SoFi Wealth.
In re Renren Inc. Derivative Litigation. On March 22, 2021, Social Finance was named as a newly added defendant in an Amended and Supplemental Consolidated Stockholder Derivative Complaint (the “Amended Complaint”) filed in an ongoing action pending in the Supreme Court of New York, captioned In re Renren, Inc. Derivative Litigation, Index No. 653564/2018. The plaintiffs, Hen Ren Silk Road Investments LLC, Oasis Investments II Master Fund Ltd., and Jodi Arama, allege that the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Renren, Inc. (“Renren”), Joseph Chen, and others, breached their fiduciary duties to Renren’s shareholders in connection with a transaction in which Renren spun off its holdings of Social Finance shares (as well as stock in other entities) to Oak Pacific Investments (“OPI”), an entity allegedly controlled by Mr. Chen. The Amended Complaint contains only one count against Social Finance. Specifically, the plaintiffs claim that Social Finance’s receipt of approximately 17 million of its own securities from OPI pursuant to a call option transfer during the pendency of the lawsuit constituted a fraudulent conveyance pursuant to D.C.L. Section 276 (as in effect in March 2019) that should be voided and set aside pursuant to D.C.L. Sections 278 and 279 (as effective in 2019), as well as unspecified compensatory damages. The Amended Complaint seeks, among other things, an order to impose a constructive trust over the SoFi shares transferred from Renren or the proceeds thereof, voiding and setting aside the call option transfer of approximately 17 million Social Finance shares as a fraudulent conveyance, and requiring Social Finance to pay over the value of the call option transfer. Social Finance has filed a motion to dismiss the Amended Complaint, which is pending before the Court. We cannot reasonably estimate an amount of loss or range of possible loss associated with this matter, although because of indemnification obligations due to us, we believe the probability of loss to be remote. The shares reported herein are consistent with the Amended Complaint and are not adjusted for the effect of the Business Combination.
Item 1A. Risk Factors
In evaluating our company and our business, you should carefully consider the risks and uncertainties described below, together with the other information in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, including our condensed consolidated financial statements and the related notes and in the section titled “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations”. The occurrence of one or more of the events or circumstances described in these risk factors, alone or in combination with other events or circumstances, may have a material adverse effect on our business, reputation, revenue, financial condition, results of operations and future prospects, in which case the market price of our common stock could decline, and you could lose part or all of your investment. Unless otherwise indicated, reference in this section and elsewhere in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q to our business being adversely affected, negatively impacted or harmed will include an adverse effect on, or a negative impact or harm to, our business, reputation, financial condition, results of operations, revenue and our future prospects. The material and other risks and uncertainties summarized above in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and described below are not intended to be exhaustive and are not the only ones we face. Additional risks and uncertainties not presently known to us or that we currently deem immaterial may also impair our business operations. This Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q also contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Our actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements as a result of a number of factors, including the risks described below. See the section titled “Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements”.
Our business is subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, which illuminate challenges that we face in connection with the successful implementation of our strategy and the growth of our business. An investment in our securities involves a high degree of risk. You should carefully consider the risks described below before making an investment decision. Our business, prospects, financial condition or operating results could be harmed by any of these risks, as well as other risks not currently known to us or that we currently consider immaterial. The trading price of our securities could decline due to any of these risks, and, as a result, you may lose all or part of your investment. Certain statements in “Risk Factors” are forward-looking statements. See “Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements”.
Business, Financial and Operational Risks
We operate in a rapidly evolving industry, and have limited experience in our Financial Services and Technology Platform segments, which may make it difficult for us to successfully identify and address the risks and uncertainties we face.
We operate in a rapidly evolving industry, and have limited experience in our Financial Services and Technology Platform segments, which may make it difficult to evaluate our business and future prospects. In particular, we have limited experience
offering cash management and investment services and technology solutions. We face numerous challenges to our success, including our ability to:
•increase or maintain the number, volume and types of, and add new features to, the loans we extend to our members as the market for loans evolves and as we face new and increasing competitive threats;
•increase the number of members utilizing non-lending products, and maintain and build on the loyalty of existing members by increasing their use of new or additional products;
•successfully maintain and enhance our diversified funding strategy, including through securitization financing from consolidated and nonconsolidated variable interest entities (“VIEs”), whole loan sales and debt warehouse facilities;
•further establish, diversify and refine our cash management, investment and brokerage offerings to meet evolving consumer needs and preferences;
•diversify our sources of revenue;
•favorably compete with other companies, including traditional and alternative technology-enabled lenders and broker dealers;
•introduce new products or other offerings to meet the needs of our existing and prospective members or to keep pace with competitive lending, cash management, investment and other developments;
•maintain or increase the effectiveness of our direct marketing, and other sales and marketing efforts;
•successfully navigate economic conditions and fluctuations in the credit markets;
•establish fraud prevention strategies that proactively identify threat vectors and mitigate losses;
•defend our platform from information security vulnerabilities, cyberattacks or malicious attacks;
•effectively manage the growth of our business;
•effectively manage our expenses;
•obtain debt or equity capital on attractive terms or at all;
•successfully continue to expand internationally;
•adequately respond to macroeconomic and other exogenous challenges, including the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic; and
•anticipate and react to changes in an evolving regulatory and political environment.
We may not be able to successfully address the risks and uncertainties we face, which could negatively impact our business, financial condition, results of operations, cash flows and future prospects.
We have a history of losses and may not achieve profitability in the future.
Our net losses were $342.9 million and $98.6 million for the six months ended June 30, 2021 and 2020, respectively. We may continue to incur net losses in the future, and such losses may fluctuate significantly from quarter to quarter. We will need to generate and sustain significant revenues for our business generally, and achieve greater scale and generate greater operating cash flows from our Financial Services segment, in particular, in future periods in order to achieve, maintain or increase our level of profitability. We intend to continue to invest in sales and marketing, technology and new products and services in order to enhance our brand recognition and our value proposition to our members, and these additional costs will create further challenges to generating near term profitability. General and administrative expenses have increased, and we expect they may continue to increase, to meet the increased compliance and other requirements associated with operating as a public company and evolving regulatory requirements. In addition, we are acquiring a national bank charter, and operating a bank may significantly increase our compliance costs. See “—We are acquiring a national bank, which is subject to regulatory approvals and other closing conditions, and, if consummated, the acquisition will subject us to significant additional regulation”.
Our efforts to grow our business may be more costly than we expect, and we may not be able to increase our revenue sufficiently to offset our higher operating expenses. We may continue to incur losses and not achieve future profitability or, if
achieved, be unable to maintain such profitability, due to a number of reasons, including the risks described in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, unforeseen expenses, difficulties, complications and delays, and other unknown events.
We have experienced rapid growth in recent years, including through the addition of new lines of business, which may place significant demands on our operational, risk management, sales and marketing, technology, compliance, and finance and accounting resources.
Our rapid growth in certain areas of our business in recent years, primarily within our Financial Services and Technology segments, has placed significant demands on our operational, risk management, sales and marketing, technology, compliance, and finance and accounting infrastructure, and has resulted in increased expenses, a trend that we expect to continue as our business is growing. In addition, we are required to continuously develop and adapt our systems and infrastructure in response to the increasing sophistication of the consumer financial services market, evolving fraud and information security landscape, and regulatory developments relating to existing and projected business activities. Our future growth will depend, among other things, on our ability to maintain an operating platform and management system apt to address such growth, and will require us to incur significant additional expenses, expand our workforce and commit additional senior management and operational resources. We may not be able to manage supporting and expanding our operations effectively, and any failure to do so would adversely affect our ability to increase the scale of our business, generate projected revenue and control expenses.
There is no assurance that our revenue and business model will be successful.
We are continually refining our revenue and business model, which is premised on creating a virtuous cycle for our members to engage in more products across our platform, a strategy we refer to as the Financial Services Productivity Loop. There is no assurance that these efforts will be successful or that we will generate revenues commensurate with our efforts and expectations, or become profitable. We may be forced to make significant changes to our revenue and business model to compete with our competitors’ offerings, and even if such changes are undertaken, there is no guarantee that they will be successful. Additionally, we will likely be required to hire, train and integrate qualified personnel to meet and further our business objectives, and our ability to successfully do so is uncertain.
Our results of operations and future prospects depend on our ability to retain existing, and attract new, members. We face intense and increasing competition and, if we do not compete effectively, our competitive positioning and our operating results will be harmed.
We refer to our customers as “members”. We define a member as someone who has a lending relationship with us via origination or servicing, opened a financial services account, linked an external account to our platform, or signed up for our credit score monitoring service. We operate in a rapidly changing and highly competitive industry, and our results of operations and future prospects depend on, among others:
•the continued growth of our member base;
•our ability to monetize our member base, including through the use of additional products by our existing members;
•our ability to acquire members at a lower cost; and
•our ability to increase the overall value to us of each of our members while they remain on our platform (which we refer to as a member’s lifetime value).
We expect our competition to continue to increase, as there are generally no substantial barriers to entry to the markets we serve. In addition to established enterprises, we may also face competition from early-stage companies attempting to capitalize on the same, or similar, opportunities as we are. Some of our current and potential competitors have longer operating histories, particularly with respect to our financial services products, significantly greater financial, technical, marketing and other resources and a larger customer base than we do. This allows them, among others, to potentially offer more competitive pricing or other terms or features, a broader range of financial products, or a more specialized set of specific products or services, as well as respond more quickly than we can to new or emerging technologies and changes in member preferences. Our existing or future competitors may develop products or services that are similar to our products and services or that achieve greater market acceptance than our products and services. This could attract new members away from our services and reduce our market share in the future. Additionally, when new competitors seek to enter our markets, or when existing market participants seek to increase their market share, these competitors sometimes undercut, or otherwise exert pressure on, the pricing terms prevalent in that market, which could adversely affect our market share and/or ability to capitalize on new market opportunities.
We currently compete at multiple levels with a variety of competitors, including:
•other personal loan, student loan refinancing, in-school student loan and home loan lenders, including traditional banks, as well as credit card issuers, that can offer more competitive interest rates or terms;
•traditional banks and other non-bank financial institutions for cash management accounts like SoFi Money;
•other brokerage firms, including online or mobile platforms, for investment accounts in SoFi Invest;
•other technology platforms for the enterprise services we provide, such as technology platform services via our subsidiary, Galileo;
•with other content providers for subscribers to our financial services content, including content from alternative providers available to our subscribers through our Lantern service, which is an independent financial services aggregator providing marketplace lending products, and various enterprise partnerships; and
•other financial services firms offering leading employers a comprehensive platform for employees to build financial well-being through student loan and 529 educational plan contributions, educational tools, and financial resources, all of which we provide through SoFi at Work.
We compete with traditional banks for many of the services we offer in our Financial Services segment. Because we do not currently control a bank or a bank holding company, we are subject to regulation by a variety of state and federal regulators across our products and services and we rely on third-party banks to provide banking services to our members. This regulation by federal, state and local authorities increases our compliance costs, particularly for our lending business, as we navigate multiple regimes with different examination schedules and processes, varying disclosure requirements, and at times conflicting consumer protection laws. In addition, our ability to compete may be hampered in certain states where the amount of interest we are permitted to charge consumers is capped and we are consequently unable to make loans to all the consumers that we believe may be qualified but to whom we cannot offer the appropriate risk-adjusted margin. See “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations — Executive Overview” for a summary of the additional measures required in our efforts to acquire a national bank.
We believe that our ability to compete depends upon many factors both within and beyond our control, including, among others, the following:
•the size, diversity and activity levels of our member base;
•our ability to introduce successful new products or services;
•the timing and market acceptance of products and services, including developments and enhancements to those products and services, offered by us and our competitors;
•member service and support efforts;
•selling and marketing efforts;
•the ease of use, performance, price and reliability of solutions developed either by us or our competitors;
•changes in economic conditions, regulatory and policy developments;
•our ability to successfully acquire a national bank subsidiary;
•our ability to successfully execute on the Financial Services Productivity Loop and our other business plans;
•general credit markets conditions and their impact on our liquidity and ability to access funding;
•the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and related developments on the lending and financial services markets we serve; and
•our brand strength relative to our competitors.
Our current and future business prospects demand that we act to meet these competitive challenges but, in doing so, our revenues and results of operations could be adversely affected if we, for example, increase marketing expenditures or make other expenditures. Competitive pressures could also result in us reducing the annual percentage rate on the loans we originate,
incurring higher member acquisition costs and could make it more difficult for us to grow our loan originations in both number of loans and volume for new as well as existing members. All of the foregoing factors and events could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, cash flows and future prospects.
We are acquiring a national bank, which is subject to regulatory approvals and other closing conditions, and, if consummated, the acquisition will subject us to significant additional regulation.
We believe a national bank charter will improve our capital efficiency, provide funding resilience and regulatory clarity, and generate improved margins. In March 2021, we entered into an agreement to acquire Golden Pacific Bancorp, Inc., a bank holding company, and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Golden Pacific Bank, National Association, a national bank. The acquisition is subject to approval from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (the “Federal Reserve”) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (the “OCC”) under the Bank Holding Company Act and the National Bank Act, respectively, as well as other customary closing conditions, all of which we anticipate can be completed by the end of 2021. Our ability to obtain the requisite approvals for the acquisition depends on the bank regulators’ views of our capital levels, quality of management, and overall condition, in addition to their assessment of a variety of other factors, including our compliance with law. In connection with applying for these approvals, we have developed a financial and bank capitalization plan and may need to enhance our governance, compliance, controls and management infrastructure and capabilities in order to be compliant with all applicable regulations and operate to the satisfaction of the banking regulators, which may require substantial time, monetary and human resource commitments. If we are not successful in developing a financial and bank capitalization plan or enhancing, as needed, our governance, compliance, controls and management infrastructure and capabilities, our ability to obtain a national bank charter may be jeopardized.
Ultimately, if we are unable to obtain a national bank charter due to a failure to obtain the necessary regulatory approvals for the acquisition of Golden Pacific Bancorp, Inc. and its national bank subsidiary, Golden Pacific Bank, National Association, then our ability to improve our capital efficiency, funding resilience, margins, and our stock price, may be adversely affected. Our stock price may also decline to the extent that the current market price reflects a market assumption that we would obtain a national bank charter. In addition, we will have spent substantial time and resources, and would recognize substantial expenses in connection with the negotiation and documentation of a bank acquisition without realizing the expected benefits of obtaining a bank charter. Without a national bank charter, we would be required to continue to maintain state-specific licenses for certain of our consumer loans and financial services products.
Further, if the acquisition successfully closes and we do obtain a national bank charter through our ownership of Golden Pacific Bank, National Association, we will become subject to regulation, supervision and examination by the Federal Reserve as well as other federal bank regulators. Our efforts to comply with such additional regulation may require substantial time, monetary and human resource commitments. If any new regulations or interpretations of existing regulations to which we are subject impose requirements on us that are impractical or that we cannot satisfy, our financial performance, and our stock price, may be adversely affected.
Should we successfully acquire a national bank charter through our ownership of Golden Pacific Bank, National Association or otherwise, certain of our stockholders may need to comply with applicable federal banking statutes and regulations, including the Change in Bank Control Act and the Bank Holding Company Act. Specifically, stockholders holding 10.0% or more of our voting interests may be required to provide certain information and/or commitments on a confidential basis to, among other regulators, the Federal Reserve. This requirement may deter certain existing or potential stockholders from purchasing shares of our common stock, which may suppress demand for the stock and cause the price to decline.
Our future growth depends significantly on our branding and marketing efforts, and if our marketing efforts are not successful, our business and results of operations will be harmed.
We have dedicated and intend to continue to dedicate significant resources to marketing efforts. Our ability to attract members depends in large part on the success of these marketing efforts and the success of the marketing channels we use to promote our products. Our marketing channels include, but are not limited to, social media, traditional media such as the press, online affiliations, search engine optimization, search engine marketing, offline partnerships, preapproved direct mailings and television advertising.
While our goal remains to increase the strength, recognition and trust in our brand by increasing our member base and expanding our products and services, if any of our current marketing channels becomes less effective, if we are unable to continue to use any of these channels, if the cost of using these channels was to significantly increase or if we are not successful in generating new channels, we may not be able to attract new members in a cost-effective manner or increase the activity of our existing members on our platform, including by using additional products or services we offer. If we are unable to recover
our marketing costs through increases in the size, value or overall number of loans we originate, or other product selection and utilization, it could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, cash flows and future prospects.
Legislative and regulatory policies and related actions in connection with student loans could have a material adverse effect on our student loan portfolios.
In recent years, there has been increased focus by policymakers on outstanding student loans, including, among other things, on the total volume of outstanding loans and on the number of loans outstanding per borrower. In response, there has been discussion of potential legislative and regulatory actions and other possible steps to, among other things:
•permit private education loans such as our refinanced student loan and in-school student loan products to be discharged in bankruptcy without the need to show undue hardship;
•amend the federal postsecondary education loan programs, including to reduce interest rates on certain loans, to revise repayment plans, to implement loan forgiveness plans, to provide for refinancing of private education loans into federal student loans at low interest rates, to reduce or eliminate the Grad PLUS program (which authorizes loans that comprise a substantial portion of our student loan refinancing business) and to provide for refinancing of existing federally held student loans into new federal student loans at low interest rates;
•require private education lenders to reform loan agreements to provide for income-based repayment plans and other government payment plans; and
•make sweeping changes to the entire cost structure and financial aid system for higher education in the United States, including proposals to provide free postsecondary education.
As of the date of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, the Biden administration has ordered a formal legal review of authorities that could be used to cancel student debt. Prominent politicians have also advocated for executive action to forgive student loan debt. If student loans were forgiven or canceled in any meaningful scale, our profitability, results of operations, financial condition, cash flows or future business prospects could be materially and adversely affected as a result. In particular, our student loan refinancing business within our Lending segment, which is our largest segment, would be materially and adversely affected. There has also been pressure on policymakers to address underlying factors that contributed to the current volume of outstanding student loans, such as the cost of higher education and the ability for additional methods by the federal government and other organizations to subsidize the same, such as through increased use of Pell grants in lieu of loans. Further, proposals to eliminate or amend Section 523(a)(8) of the Bankruptcy Code, which makes student loans presumptively non-dischargeable in bankruptcy could make investors less likely to purchase our student loans. If steps were taken to materially reduce future demand by students for student loan refinancing and in-school student loan products, our student loan originations would be materially and adversely affected. As a result of any material adverse effect to our Lending segment, our overall profitability, results of operations, financial condition, cash flows or future business prospects may be adversely affected. See “— COVID-19 Pandemic Risks — Legislative and regulatory responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and related economic uncertainty could have a material adverse effect on our current student loan portfolios and our loan origination volume”.
Negative publicity could result in a decline in our member growth, or a loss of members, and impact our ability to compete for lending counterparties and corporate partners, and have a material adverse effect on our business, our brand and our results of operations.
We have invested significantly in our brand. We believe that maintaining and enhancing our brand identity is critical to our relationships with existing members and partners, particularly lending counterparties, marketing partners and other corporate partners, and to our ability to attract new members and partners. Our ability to compete for and maintain members, lending counterparties and other corporate partners relies to a large extent on their trust in our business and the value of our brand. The failure or perceived failure to maintain our brand could adversely affect our brand value, financial condition and results of operations. Negative publicity can adversely affect our reputation and damage our brand, and may arise from many sources, including actual or alleged misconduct, errors or improper business practices by employees, employee claims of discrimination or harassment, product failures, existing or future litigation or regulatory actions, inadequate protection of consumer information, data breaches, matters affecting our financial reporting or compliance with SEC and Nasdaq listing requirements, and media coverage, whether accurate or not. Negative publicity or allegations of unfavorable business practices, poor governance, or workplace misconduct can be rapidly and widely shared over social or traditional media or other means, and could reduce demand for our products, undermine the loyalty of our members and the confidence of our lending counterparties, impact our partnerships, reduce our ability to recruit and retain employees, or lead to greater regulatory scrutiny of our operations. In addition, we and our officers, directors and/or employees have been, and may in the future be, named or
otherwise involved in litigation or claims, including employment-related claims such as workplace discrimination or harassment, which could result in negative publicity and/or adversely impact our business, even if we are ultimately successful in defending against such claims.
We may experience fluctuations in our quarterly operating results.
We may experience fluctuations in our quarterly operating results due to a number of factors, including changes in the fair values of our instruments (including, but not limited to, our loans and warrants assumed in connection with the Business Combination), the level of our expenses, the degree to which we encounter competition in our markets, general economic conditions, the rate and credit market environment, legal or regulatory developments, legislative or policy changes and the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. In light of these factors, results for any period should not be relied upon as being indicative of performance in future periods.
We sell a significant percentage of our loans to a concentrated number of whole loan purchasers and the loss of one or more significant purchasers could have a negative impact on our operating results.
We sell a significant percentage of our personal, student and home loans to a concentrated number of whole loan purchasers. Our top five whole loan purchasers by total purchase price accounted for approximately 69% of the aggregate principal balance of our loans sold during the six months ended June 30, 2021. During the six months ended June 30, 2021, the two largest third-party buyers accounted for a combined 45% of our loan sales volume. See Note 14 to the Notes to Unaudited Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements included elsewhere in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q. There are inherent risks whenever a large percentage of a business is concentrated with a limited number of parties. It is not possible for us to predict the future level of demand for our loans by these or other purchasers. In addition, purchases of our loans by these purchasers have historically fluctuated and may continue to fluctuate based on a number of factors, some of which may be outside of our control, including economic conditions, the availability of alternative investments, changes in the or terms of the loans, loans offered by other entities and prevailing interest rates. If any of these purchasers significantly reduce the dollar amount of the loans they purchase from us, we may be unable to sell those loans to another purchaser on favorable terms or at all, which may have a material adverse effect on our revenues, results of operations, liquidity and cash flows.
COVID-19 Pandemic Risks
Our financial condition and results of operations may be adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Occurrences of epidemics or pandemics, depending on their scale, may cause different degrees of disruption to the regional, state and local economies in which we offer our products and services. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has had and could continue to have a material adverse effect on the value, operating results and financial condition of our business.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused substantial changes in consumer and student behavior, restrictions on business and individual activities and high unemployment rates, which have led to reduced economic activity. Extraordinary actions taken by international, federal, state, and local public health and governmental authorities to contain and combat the outbreak and spread of COVID-19 and variants thereof in regions throughout the world, including travel bans, quarantines, “stay-at-home” orders, suspension of interest accrual and collections on certain federally-backed student loans, and similar mandates for many individuals and businesses to substantially restrict daily activities have led to a decrease in consumer activity generally.
While the extent and duration of the economic slowdown and high unemployment rates attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic remain uncertain at this time, particularly as additional strains of the virus emerge and create potential challenges to vaccination efforts, a continued significant economic slowdown could have a substantial adverse effect on our financial condition, liquidity and results of operations.
The COVID-19 pandemic has also had an impact on the behavior of existing and prospective university students seeking higher education. According to the National Student Clearinghouse, there has been a material decline in the number of students entering college in the class of 2024 as compared to the number of students in the class of 2023, which has contributed in part, and may continue to contribute, to a reduction in the volume and amount of the in-school loans we originate and student loans we refinance. Additionally, in response to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, among other factors, the Federal Reserve has indicated that it currently plans to continue a policy of maintaining interest rates at historically low levels through the remainder of 2021 and in 2022. While low interests rates often increase immediate demand for our student loan refinancing product, they also lock in low rates of interest for current students, which decreases demand for a refinanced student loan in the future. Additionally, demand for our student loan products may continue to be impacted by legislative and regulatory actions
taken in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as described in more detail in these risk factors. There have been, and may continue to be, other factors that put downward pressure on demand for our student loan products.
See “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of our Financial Condition and Results of Operations — Key Business Metrics” and “— Results of Operations” for further discussion of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in recent periods on our business and operating results. The COVID-19 pandemic, and its impact, may also have the effect of heightening many of the other risks described herein.
Legislative and regulatory responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and related economic uncertainty could have a material adverse effect on our current loan portfolios and our loan origination volume.
Legislative and regulatory responses to the COVID-19 pandemic could have a significant impact on our student loan portfolios. On March 27, 2020, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (“CARES Act”) was signed into law. In compliance with the CARES Act, payments and interest accrual on all loans owned by the Department of Education were suspended through September 30, 2020 and were further extended by executive action most recently through January 31, 2022. The Department of Education indicated that this will be the final extension of the payment and interest accrual suspension. Additionally, on March 25, 2020, the Department of Education announced that private collection agencies were required to stop making outbound collection calls and sending letters or billing statements to borrowers in default on such federally held loans. As a result of such forbearance measures and protections, borrowers with federally held student loans might lack the incentive to refinance their student loans with us, which could negatively impact our business by reducing our loan origination volume.
Additionally, while the CARES Act applies only to loans owned by the Department of Education, several states have adopted various initiatives to suspend payment obligations for private student loan borrowers in those states and we have suspended payment obligations by our members and interest accrual on loans in response, where applicable. In addition, in April 2020, various restrictions around the servicing and collection of private education loans were enacted by certain states. We believe we are in compliance with all such restrictions.
We also established a number of special hardship or forbearance plans, including: (i) student loan forbearance of payments for an initial 60 days with an optional 30-day extension available to members demonstrating continued need; (ii) personal loan forbearance of payments for an initial 30 days with an optional 30-day extension available to members demonstrating continued need; and (iii) home loan forbearance of payments consistent with FNMA servicing guidelines for an initial 90 days with possible extensions available to members demonstrating continued need. We discontinued enrollment in our COVID-19 forbearance programs, which were designed to be temporary in nature, for personal loans and student loans on March 31, 2021 and April 30, 2021, respectively. Subject to eligibility, members may participate in other customary hardship programs.
The various legislative and regulatory responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly the mandatory suspension of payments and interest accrual on federally held loans, as well as our own forbearance measures to assist our members, are likely to serve as a disincentive for borrowers to refinance their loans through our platform, thereby reducing our loan origination volume and negatively impacting our revenue. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to increasing pressure on policymakers to reduce or cancel student loans at a significant scale which would further reduce demand for our student loan refinance product and have a negative impact on our loan origination volume and revenue.
Although we are evaluating the ultimate impact of local, state and federal legislation and regulation, guidance and actions, future legislative actions, and the on-going impact of our own forbearance measures on our financial results, business operations and strategies, there is no guarantee that our estimates will be accurate or that any actions we take based on such estimates will be successful. Furthermore, we believe that the cost of responding to, and complying with, evolving laws and regulations, as well as any guidance from enforcement actions, will continue to increase, as will the risk of penalties and fines from any enforcement actions that may be imposed on our businesses. Our profitability, results of operations, financial condition, cash flows or future business prospects could be materially and adversely affected as a result.
Strategic and New Product Risks
We have in the past consummated and, from time to time we may evaluate and potentially consummate, acquisitions, which could require significant management attention, disrupt our business and adversely affect our financial results.
Our success will depend, in part, on our ability to expand our business. In some circumstances, we may determine to do so through the acquisition of complementary assets, businesses and technologies rather than through internal development. For example, in April 2020, we acquired 8 Limited, an investment business in Hong Kong, and in May 2020, we acquired Galileo, a company that provides technology platform services to financial and non-financial institutions. The identification of suitable
acquisition candidates can be difficult, time-consuming and costly, and we may not be able to successfully complete identified acquisitions. The risks we face in connection with acquisitions include:
•diversion of management time and focus from operating our business to addressing acquisition integration challenges;
•coordination of technology, product development, risk management and sales and marketing functions;
•retention of employees from the acquired company, and retention of our employees who were attracted to us because of our smaller size or for other reasons;
•cultural challenges associated with integrating employees from the acquired company into our organization;
•integration of the acquired company’s accounting, management information, human resources and other administrative systems;
•the need to implement or improve controls, procedures and policies at a business that prior to the acquisition may have lacked effective controls, information security safeguards, procedures and policies;
•potential write-offs or impairments of intangible assets or other assets acquired in the acquisition;
•liability for activities of the acquired company before the acquisition, including patent and trademark infringement claims, violations of laws, commercial disputes, tax liabilities and other known and unknown liabilities;
•litigation or other claims in connection with the acquired company, including claims from terminated employees, customers, former stockholders or other third parties; and
•geographic expansion exposes our business to known and unknown regulatory compliance risks including elevated risk factors for tax compliance, money laundering controls, and supervisory controls oversight.
Our failure to address these risks or other problems encountered in connection with our acquisitions and investments could cause us to fail to realize the anticipated benefits of these acquisitions or investments, cause us to incur unanticipated liabilities and harm our business, generally. Future acquisitions could also result in dilutive issuances of our equity securities, the incurrence of debt, contingent liabilities, regulatory obligations to further capitalize our business, and goodwill and intangible asset impairments, any of which could harm our financial condition and negatively impact our stockholders. To the extent we pay the consideration for any future acquisitions or investments in cash, it would reduce the amount of cash available to us for other purposes.
Galileo depends on a small number of clients, the loss or disruptions in operations of any of which could have a material adverse effect on its business and financial results, and negatively impact our financial results and results of operations.
In May 2020, we completed our acquisition of Galileo for a purchase price of $1.2 billion. During the six months ended June 30, 2021, our Technology Platform segment consisted entirely of net revenues from Galileo, which accounted for 21% of our consolidated total net revenue. Galileo’s clients are highly concentrated, with its five largest clients contributing approximately 67% of the total net revenue within the Technology Platform segment during the six months ended June 30, 2021, which represented approximately 14% of our consolidated total net revenue for the period then ended. There are inherent risks whenever a large percentage of net revenue is concentrated with a limited number of customers, including the loss of any one or more of those clients as a result of bankruptcy or insolvency proceedings involving the client, the loss of the client to a competitor, harm to that client’s reputation or financial prospects or other reasons. In addition, disruptions in the operations of any of Galileo’s key clients have in the past disrupted and may in the future disrupt Galileo’s operations, and these disruptions could be material and have an adverse impact on our results of operations.
Demand for our products may decline if we do not continue to innovate or respond to evolving technological or other changes.
We operate in a dynamic industry characterized by rapidly evolving technology, frequent product introductions, and competition based on pricing and other differentiators. We continue to explore new product offerings and may rely on our proprietary technology to make our platform available to members, to service members and to introduce new products, which both fosters innovation and introduces new potential liabilities and risks. For example, in March 2021, we launched our IPO investment center to allow members with a SoFi active Invest account to invest in initial public offerings, that we may underwrite through SoFi Securities. While this enables us to generate underwriting fees, it could also subject us to liability under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”) for the contents of the prospectuses for the initial public
offerings that we underwrite, which could be material. In addition, we may increasingly rely on technological innovation as we introduce new types of products, expand our current products into new markets, and continue to streamline our platform. The process of developing new technologies and products is complex, and if we are unable to successfully innovate and continue to deliver a superior member experience, members’ demand for our products may decrease and our growth and operations may be harmed. The brokerage industry also competes on price, and our ability to meet the demand of our customers in this respect could affect our ability to maintain demand for our products and services.
SoFi Securities is a participant in the Depository Trust Company’s settlement services. Broker-dealers that settle their own trades are subject to substantially more regulatory requirements than brokers that outsource these functions to third-party providers. Errors in performing settlement functions, including clerical, technological and other errors related to the handling of funds and securities could lead to censures, fines or other sanctions imposed by applicable regulatory authorities as well as losses and liability in related lawsuits and proceedings brought by transaction counterparties and others. Any unsettled securities transactions or wrongly executed transactions may expose the broker dealer to adverse movements in the prices of such securities.
An increase in fraudulent activity could lead to reputational damage to our brand and material legal, regulatory and financial exposure (including fines and other penalties), and could reduce the use and acceptance of SoFi Money and SoFi Credit Card.
Financial institutions like us, as well as our members, colleagues, regulators, vendors and other third parties, have experienced a significant increase in fraudulent activity in recent years and will likely continue to be the target of increasingly sophisticated fraudsters and fraud rings in the future. This is particularly true for our newer products where we have limited experience evaluating customer behavior and performing tailored risk assessments, such as SoFi Money and SoFi Credit Card.
We develop and maintain systems and processes aimed at detecting and preventing fraudulent activity, which require significant investment, maintenance and ongoing monitoring and updating as technologies and regulatory requirements change and as efforts to overcome security and anti-fraud measures become more sophisticated. Despite our efforts, the possibility of fraudulent or other malicious activities and human error or malfeasance cannot be eliminated entirely and will evolve as new and emerging technology is deployed, including the increasing use of personal mobile and computing devices that are outside of our network and control environments. Risks associated with each of these include theft of funds and other monetary loss, the effects of which could be compounded if not detected quickly. Indeed, fraudulent activity may not be detected until well after it occurs and the severity and potential impact may not be fully known for a substantial period of time after it has been discovered.
Fraudulent activity and other actual or perceived failures to maintain a product’s integrity and/or security has led to increased regulatory scrutiny and may lead to regulatory investigations and intervention (such as mandatory card reissuance), increased litigation (including class action litigation), remediation, fines and response costs, negative assessments of us and our subsidiaries by regulators and rating agencies, reputational and financial damage to our brand, and reduced usage of our products and services, all of which could have a material adverse impact on our business.
Successful fraudulent activity and other related incidents related to the actual or perceived failures to maintain the integrity of our processes and controls could negatively affect us, including harming the market perception of the effectiveness of our security measures or harming the reputation of the financial system in general, which could result in reduced use of our products and services. Such events could also result in legislation and additional regulatory requirements. Although we maintain insurance, there can be no assurance that liabilities or losses we may incur will be covered under such policies or that the amount of insurance will be adequate.
We rely on third parties and their systems to process transaction data and for settlement of funds on SoFi Money, and these third parties’ failure to perform these services adequately could materially and adversely affect our business.
To provide our cash management account and credit card and other products and services, we rely on third parties that we do not control, such as the payment card networks, our acquiring and issuing processors, the payment card issuers, various financial institution partners, systems like the ACH, and other partners. We rely on these third parties for a variety of services, including the transmission of transaction data, processing of chargebacks and refunds, settlement of funds, and the provision of information and other elements of our services. In the event these third parties fail to provide these services adequately, including as a result of financial difficulty or insolvency, errors in their systems, outages or events beyond their control, or refuse to provide these services on terms acceptable to us or at all, and we are not able to find suitable alternatives, our business may be materially and adversely affected.
SoFi Credit Card is a relatively new product and we may not be successful in our efforts to promote its usage through marketing and promotion, or to effectively control the costs of such investments, both of which may materially impact our profitability.
Revenue growth for SoFi Credit Card is dependent on increasing the volume of members who open an account and on growing loan balances on those accounts. We have been investing in a number of new product initiatives to attract new SoFi Credit Card members and capture a greater share of our members’ total spending and borrowings. There can be no assurance that our investments in SoFi Credit Card to acquire members, provide differentiated features and services and spur usage of our card will be effective. Further, developing our service offerings, marketing SoFi Credit Card in additional customer acquisition channels and forming new partnerships could have higher costs than anticipated, and could adversely impact our results or dilute our brand. See — “Funding and Liquidity Risks — SoFi Credit Card is a relatively new product and any failure to execute our funding strategy for it could have a negative impact on our business, operating results and financial condition”.
We may continue to expand operations abroad where we have limited operating experience and may be subject to increased business, economic and regulatory risks that could adversely impact our financial results.
In April 2020, we undertook our first international expansion by acquiring 8 Limited, an investment business in Hong Kong. We may, in the future, pursue further international expansion of our business operations, either organically or through acquisitions, in new international markets where we have limited or no experience in marketing, selling and deploying our product and services. If we fail to deploy or manage our operations in these countries successfully, our business and operations may suffer. In addition, we are subject to a variety of risks inherent in doing business internationally, including:
•political, social and/or economic instability;
•risks related to governmental regulations in foreign jurisdictions, including regulations relating to privacy, and unexpected changes in regulatory requirements and enforcement;
•fluctuations in currency exchange rates;
•higher levels of credit risk and fraud;
•enhanced difficulties of integrating any foreign acquisitions;
•burdens of complying with a variety of foreign laws;
•reduced protection for intellectual property rights in some countries;
•difficulties in staffing and managing global operations and the increased travel, infrastructure and legal compliance costs associated with multiple international locations and subsidiaries;
•different regulations and practices with respect to employee/employer relationships, existence of workers’ councils and labor unions, and other challenges caused by distance, language, and cultural differences, making it harder to do business in certain international jurisdictions;
•compliance with statutory equity requirements; and
•management of tax consequences.
If we are unable to manage the complexity of global operations successfully, our financial performance and operating results could suffer.
Credit Risks
Worsening economic conditions cause our member default rates to increase and may result in decreased demand from institutional investors for our products, each of which could harm our operational results.
Uncertainty and negative trends in general economic conditions in the United States, including significant tightening of credit markets, historically have created a difficult environment for companies in the financial services industry. Many factors, including factors that are beyond our control, may result in higher default rates by our members and decline in the demand for our products by potential and existing investors, and have a detrimental impact on our operating performance and liquidity. These factors include general economic conditions, disruptions in the credit markets, changes in unemployment rates, the level
of consumer and business confidence, changes in consumer spending, as well as events such as natural disasters, public health crises, like the COVID-19 pandemic, acts of war, terrorism and catastrophes.
Our Lending segment may be particularly negatively impacted by worsening economic conditions that place financial stress on our members resulting in loan defaults or charge-offs at a higher-than-expected rate. If a loan charges off while we are still the owner, the loan either enters a collections process or is sold to a third-party collection agency in exchange for a fraction of the remaining amount payable to us. In either case, we will receive less than the full outstanding interest on and principal balance of the loan. Declining economic conditions may also lead to either decreased demand for our loans or demand for a higher yield on our loans, and consequently lower prices, from institutional investors on whom we rely for liquidity.
There can be no assurance that economic conditions will remain favorable for our business or that interest in purchasing our loans by financial institutions, will remain at current levels, or that default rates by our members will not increase. Reduced demand or lower prices for our products from institutional investors and increased default rates by our members may limit our access to capital, including debt warehouse facilities and securitizations, and negatively impact our profitability.
We operate in a cyclical industry. In an economic downturn, we may not be able to grow our lending business or maintain expected levels of liquidity, maintain historic loss rates and revenue growth.
The timing, severity, and duration of an economic downturn can have a significant negative impact on our ability to generate adequate revenue and to absorb expected and unexpected losses. For example, in making a decision whether to extend credit to a new or existing member, or determine appropriate pricing for a loan, our decision strategies rely on robust data collection, including from third-party sources such as credit reporting agencies, proprietary scoring models, and market expertise. An economic downturn could place financial stress on our members, potentially impacting our ability to make accurate credit assessments or lending decisions, as well as our members’ willingness to use our products. Our ability to adapt in a manner that balances future revenue production and loss management will be tested in a downturn. The longevity and severity of a downturn will also place pressure on lenders under our debt warehouses, whole loan purchasers and investors in our securitization trusts. Furthermore, long-term market disruptions could negatively impact the securitizations market. Although certain of our debt warehouses and whole loan sale agreements contain committed terms, there can be no assurance that our financing arrangements will remain available to us through any particular business cycle or be renewed on the same terms. The timing and extent of a downturn may also require us to change, postpone or cancel our strategic initiatives or growth plans to pursue shorter-term sustainability. The longer and more severe an economic downturn, the greater the potential adverse impact on us, which could be material.
If we do not make accurate credit and pricing decisions or effectively forecast our loss rates, our business and financial results will be harmed, and the harm could be material.
In making a decision whether to extend credit to prospective or existing members, we rely upon data to assess our ability to extend credit within our risk appetite, our debt servicing capacity, and overall risk level to determine lending exposure and loan pricing. If the decision components, rapidly deteriorating macro-economic conditions or analytics are either unstable, biased, or missing key pieces of information, the wrong decisions will be made, which will negatively affect our financial results. If our credit decisioning strategy fails to adequately predict the creditworthiness of our members, including a failure to predict a member’s true credit risk profile and ability to repay their loan, higher than expected loss rates will impact the fair value of our loans. Additionally, if any portion of the information pertaining to the prospective member is false, inaccurate or incomplete, and our systems did not detect such falsities, inaccuracies or incompleteness, or any or all of the other components of our credit decision process fails, we may experience higher than forecasted losses — including losses attributed to fraud. Furthermore, we rely on credit reporting agencies to obtain credit reports and other information we rely upon in making underwriting and pricing decisions. If one of these third parties experiences an outage, if we are unable to access the third-party data used in our decision strategy, or our access to such data is limited, our ability to accurately evaluate potential members will be compromised, and we may be unable to effectively predict credit losses inherent in our loan portfolio, which would negatively impact our results of operations, which could be material.
Additionally, if we make errors in the development, validation, or implementation of any of the underwriting models or tools that we use for the loans securing our debt warehouses or included in securitization transactions or whole loan sales, such loans may experience higher delinquencies and losses, which would negatively impact our debt warehouse financing terms and future securitization and whole loan sale transactions.
If the information provided to us by members is incorrect or fraudulent, we may misjudge a member’s qualification to receive a loan and our results of operations may be harmed.
Our lending decisions are based partly on information provided to us by loan applicants. To the extent that these applicants provide information to us in a manner that we are unable to verify, our credit decisioning process may not accurately reflect the associated risk. In addition, data provided by third-party sources, including credit reporting agencies, is a significant component of our credit decisions and this data may contain inaccuracies. Inaccurate analysis of credit data that could result from false loan application information could harm our reputation, business and results of operations.
In addition, we use identity and fraud prevention tools to analyze data provided by external databases to authenticate each applicant’s identity. From time to time in the past, these checks have failed and there is a risk that these checks could fail in the future, and fraud, which may be significant, may occur. We may not be able to recoup funds underlying loans made in connection with inaccurate statements, omissions of fact or fraud, in which case our revenue, results of operations and profitability will be harmed. Fraudulent activity or significant increases in fraudulent activity could also lead to regulatory intervention, which could negatively impact our results of operations, brand and reputation, and require us to take steps to reduce fraud risk, which could increase our costs.
Internet-based loan origination processes may give rise to greater risks than paper-based processes.
We use Internet-based loan processes to obtain application information and distribute certain legally required notices to applicants for, and borrowers of, our loans, and to obtain electronically signed loan documents in lieu of paper documents with ink signatures obtained in person. These processes may entail greater risks than paper-based loan origination processes, including regarding the sufficiency of notice for compliance with consumer protection laws, risks that borrowers may challenge the authenticity of loan documents, or the validity of the borrower’s electronic signature on loan documents, and risks that despite internal controls unauthorized changes are made to the electronic loan documents. If any of those factors were to cause our loans, or any of the terms of our loans, to be unenforceable against the relevant borrowers, or impair our ability as master servicer or servicer to service our loans, the value of our loan assets would decrease significantly to us and to our investors. In addition to increased default rates and losses on our loans, this could lead to the loss of whole loan investors and securitization investors and trigger terminations and amortizations under our debt warehouse facilities, each of which would materially adversely impact our business.
Student loans are subject to discharge in certain circumstances.
Private education loans, including the refinanced student loans and other student loans made by us, are generally not dischargeable by a borrower in bankruptcy. However, a private education loan may be discharged if the bankruptcy court determines that not discharging the debt would impose an undue hardship on the debtor and the debtor’s dependents. Further, bills have been introduced in Congress that would make student loans dischargeable in bankruptcy to the same extent as other forms of unsecured credit without regard to hardship analysis. It is possible that a higher percentage of borrowers will obtain relief under bankruptcy or other debtor relief laws as a result of financial and economic disruptions related to the COVID-19 pandemic than is reflected in our historical experience. A private education loan that is not a refinanced parent-student loan is also generally dischargeable as a result of the death or disability of the borrower. The discharge of a significant amount of our loans could adversely affect our business and results of operations.
We offer personal loans, which have a limited performance history, and therefore we have only limited prepayment, loss and delinquency data with respect to such loans on which to base projections.
The performance of the personal loans we offer is significantly dependent on the ability of the credit decisioning, income validation, and scoring models we use to originate such loans, which include a variety of factors, to effectively evaluate an applicant’s credit profile and likelihood of default. Despite recession-readiness planning and stress forecasting, there is no assurance that our credit criteria can accurately predict loan performance under economic conditions such as a prolonged down-cycle or recessionary economic environment or the governmental response to periods of disruption, such as the current environment caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which may drive unexpected outcomes. If our criteria do not accurately reflect credit risk on the personal loans, greater than expected losses may result on these loans and our business, operating results, financial condition and prospects could be materially and adversely affected.
In addition, personal loans are dischargeable in a bankruptcy proceeding involving a borrower without the need for the borrower to file an adversary claim. The discharge of a significant amount of our personal loans could adversely affect our financial condition. Furthermore, other characteristics of personal loans may increase the risk of default or fraud and there are few restrictions on the uses that may be made of personal loans by borrowers, which may result in increased levels of credit
consumption. We also originate personal loans through ACH deposits directly to the borrowers, which may result in a higher risk of fraud. The effect of these factors may be to reduce the amounts collected on our personal loans and adversely affect our operating results and financial condition.
We service all of the personal loans we originate and have limited loan servicing experience, and we rely on third parties to service the student loans, home loans and credit cards that we originate. A failure by us or these third parties to service loans properly could result in lost revenue and impact our liquidity.
We service all of the personal loans we originate, and we have limited experience with such servicing. We may begin servicing the student loans that we originate at some time in the future. We rely on sub-servicers to service all of our student loans, credit cards and all of our FNMA conforming home loans. In the event that a third-party service provider for any reason fails to perform such functions, including through negligence, willful misconduct or fraud, our ability to process payments and perform other operational functions for which we currently rely on such third-party service providers will suffer and our business, cash flows and future prospects may be negatively impacted.
Any failure on our part or on the part of third parties on whom we rely to perform functions related to our servicing activities to properly service our loans could result in us being removed as the servicer on the loans we originate, including loans financed by our warehouse facilities or sold into our whole loan sales channel and securitization transactions. If we fail to monitor our student loan sub-servicer and ensure that such sub-servicer complies with its obligations under state laws that require student loan servicers to be licensed, we may face civil claims for damages under such state laws. Because we receive revenue from such servicing activities, any such removal as the servicer or, with respect to our student loans, master servicer, could adversely affect our business, operating results, financial condition or prospects, as would the cost of onboarding a new servicer. Furthermore, we have agreed in our servicing agreements to service loans in accordance with the standards set forth therein, and may be obligated to repurchase loans if we fail to meet those standards.
We rely on third-party service providers to perform various functions in connection with the origination and servicing of certain of our loans. If a third-party service provider fails to properly perform these functions, our business and our ability to service our loans may be adversely affected.
We rely on third-party service providers to perform various functions relating to our loan origination and servicing business, including underwriting, fraud detection, marketing, operational functions, cloud infrastructure services, information technology, telecommunications and processing remotely created checks, and, because we are not a bank and cannot belong to or directly access the ACH payment network, ACH processing, and debit card and credit issuance or payment processing. We rely on sub-servicers to service all of our student loans, credit cards and all of our FNMA conforming home loans that we do not sell servicing-released, and a sub-servicer to perform certain back-up servicing functions with respect to our personal loans. While we oversee these service providers to ensure they service our loans in accordance with our agreements and regulatory requirements, we do not have control over the operations of any of the third-party service providers that we utilize. In the event that a third-party service provider for any reason fails to perform such functions, including through negligence, willful misconduct or fraud, our ability to process payments and perform other operational functions for which we currently rely on such third-party service providers will suffer and our business, cash flows and future prospects may be negatively impacted.
Additionally, if one or more key third-party service providers were to cease to exist, to become a debtor in a bankruptcy or an insolvency proceeding or to seek relief under any debtor relief laws or to terminate its relationship with us, there could be delays in our ability to process payments and perform other operational functions for which we are currently relying on such third-party service provider, and we may not be able to promptly replace such third-party service provider with a different third-party service provider that has the ability to promptly provide the same services in the same manner and on the same economic terms. As a result of any such delay or inability to replace such key third-party service provider, our ability to process payments and perform other business functions could suffer and our business, cash flows and future prospects may be negatively impacted.
We may make non-qualified home loans, which may increase the risk of litigation by consumers.
We do not currently offer, but may expand product selection to offer, non-qualified home loans, which, unlike qualified home loans, do not benefit from a presumption that the borrower has the ability to repay the loan. If we were to make a loan for which we did not satisfy the regulatory standards for ascertaining the borrower’s ability to repay the loan and the borrower were to default, we may be prevented from collecting interest and principal on that loan in court. As such, non-qualified home loans carry increased risk of exposure to litigation and claims of borrowers.
Potential geographic concentration of our members may increase the risk of loss on the loans that we originate and negatively impact our business.
Any concentration of our members in specific geographic areas may increase the risk of loss on our loans. Certain regions of the United States from time to time will experience weaker economic conditions and higher unemployment and, consequently, will experience higher rates of delinquency and loss than on similar loans in other regions of the country. Moreover, a deterioration in economic conditions, outbreaks of disease (such as new or worsening outbreaks of COVID-19 or additional strains or variants), the continued increase in extreme weather conditions and other natural events (such as hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, drought, wildfires, mudslides, earthquakes and other extreme conditions) could adversely affect the ability and willingness of borrowers in affected regions to meet their payment obligations under their loans and may consequently affect the delinquency and loss experience of such loans. In addition, we, as master servicer for all student loans and home loans and as servicer of our personal loans, have offered in the past, are currently offering as a result of the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and may in the future offer, hardship forbearance or other relief programs in certain circumstances to affected borrowers.
Conversely, an improvement in economic conditions in one or more states could result in higher prepayments of their payment obligations under their loans by borrowers in such states. As a result, we and the investors who hold our loans or securities backed by our loans may receive principal payments earlier than anticipated, and fewer interest payments than anticipated, and face certain reinvestment risks, such as the inability to acquire loans on equally attractive terms as the prepaid loans.
Further, the concentration of our loans in one or more states may have a disproportionate effect on us or investors in our loans or securities backed by our loans if governmental authorities in any of those states take action against us as originator, master servicer or servicer of those loans or take action affecting our ability as master servicer or servicer to service those loans in such states.
Market and Interest Rate Risks
We utilize a gain on sale origination model and, consequently, our business is affected by the cost and availability of funding in the capital markets.
In addition to the issuance of equity, historically, we have funded our operations and capital expenditures through sales of our loans, secured and unsecured borrowing facilities, and securitizations. We utilize a gain on sale origination model and, consequently, our earnings and financial condition are largely dependent on the price we can obtain for our products in the capital markets. Our ability to obtain these types of financing depends, among other things, on our development efforts, business plans, operating performance, lending activities, and condition of, and our access to, the capital markets at the time we seek financing. The capital markets have from time to time experienced periods of significant volatility, including volatility driven by the COVID-19 pandemic. This volatility can dramatically and adversely affect financing costs when compared to historical norms or make funding unavailable at any cost. Additional factors that could make financing more expensive or unavailable to us include, but are not limited to, financial losses, events that have an adverse impact on our reputation, lawsuits challenging our business practices, adverse regulatory changes, changes in the activities of our business partners, events that have an adverse impact on the financial services industry generally, counterparty availability, negative credit rating actions with respect to our rated securities, corporate and regulatory actions, interest rate changes, general economic conditions, including inflation, and the legal, regulatory and tax environments governing funding transactions, including existing or future securitization transactions. If financing is difficult, expensive or unavailable, our business, financial condition, results of operations, cash flows and future prospects could be materially and adversely affected.
Fluctuations in interest rates could negatively affect SoFi Money.
Falling or low interest rates may also have a negative impact on our SoFi Money product. SoFi Money is a cash management account offered through SoFi Securities, which offers members the opportunity to earn a variable interest rate on their account balances. Deposits made into a SoFi Money account are swept daily to one or more banks with which we partner, and these deposits earn a variable rate of interest and are eligible for FDIC insurance. Because we are not a bank holding company, however, we are not permitted to offer members an interest rate on their SoFi Money account balance that is higher than the interest rate we receive from our partner banks. Certain of our competitors are not subject to the same restriction and we may lose current SoFi Money account holders to those competitors or fail to sign-up new SoFi Money account holders due to offering a lower interest rate.
Low interest rates may discourage investors and borrowers from using the SoFi Money product, which would adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, cash flows and future prospects.
Higher than expected payment speeds of loans could negatively impact our returns as the holder of the residual interests in securitization trusts holding student and personal loans. These factors could materially alter our net revenue or the value of our residual interest holdings.
The rate at which borrowers prepay their loans can have a material impact on our net revenue and the value of our residual interests in securitization trusts. Prepayment rates and levels are subject to a variety of economic, social, competitive and other factors, including fluctuations in interest rates, availability of alternative financings, regulatory changes affecting the student loan market, the home loan market, consumer lending generally, and the general economy.
While we anticipate some variability in prepayment levels, extraordinary or extended increases or decreases in prepayment rates could materially affect our liquidity and net revenue. For example, when as a result of unanticipated prepayment levels, student, and personal loans, as applicable, within a securitization trust amortize faster (due to prepayments) than originally contracted, the trust’s pool balance may decline at a rate faster than the prepayment rate assumed when the trust’s bonds were originally issued. If the trust’s pool balance declines faster than originally anticipated, in most of our securitization structures, the bonds issued by that trust will also be repaid faster than originally anticipated. In such cases, our net revenue may decrease, inclusive of the diminished value of any retained residual interest by us in the trust.
Finally, rating agencies may place bonds on watch or change their ratings on (or their ratings methodology for) the bonds issued by a securitization trust, possibly raising or lowering their ratings, based upon these prepayment rates and their perception of the risk posed by those rates to the timing of the trust cash flows. Placing bonds on watch, changing ratings negatively, proposing or making changes to ratings methodology could: (i) affect our liquidity, (ii) impede our access to the securitization markets, (iii) require changes to our securitization structures, and (iv) raise or lower the value of the residual interests of our future securitization transactions.
The transition away from LIBOR as a benchmark reference for interest rates may affect our cost of capital, our liquidity, or expose us to borrower litigation or damage to the SoFi brand.
LIBOR serves as a global benchmark for determining interest rates on commercial and consumer loans, bonds, derivatives and numerous other financial instruments. LIBOR is the reference rate for the securities issued under certain of our securitizations (such as student loan securitizations), certain secured and unsecured financing facilities (such as the loan warehouse facilities, risk retention facilities and revolving credit facility), certain hedging arrangements, and our Series 1 redeemable preferred stock dividends. LIBOR is set based on interest rate information reported by certain banks, which will stop reporting such information after 2021. In March 2021, the ICE Benchmark Administration Limited, the administrator of LIBOR, affirmed its intention to publish one week and two month USD LIBOR through December 31, 2021, and all remaining USD LIBOR tenors through June 30, 2023. In addition, it is expected that all non-USD LIBOR tenors will cease after December 31, 2021. We are unable to predict whether or when an alternative reference rate will become a standard global benchmark and suitable replacement for LIBOR. We are therefore unable to predict what the replacement reference rate or rates will be for our existing financial instruments that are currently indexed to LIBOR, the extent to which our financial instruments will transition to the same replacement reference rate, or the timing of a transition. As of June 30, 2021, we had approximately $248 million of financial instruments indexed to LIBOR, consisting of loans, bonds and hedge positions. Our derivative agreements are governed by the International Swap Dealers Association, which established a 2020 IBOR Fallbacks Protocol and supplement effective in January 2021 to allow counterparties to modify legacy trades to reference amended standard definitions inclusive of the new fallback language. However, most of these legacy financial instruments do not include provisions clearly specifying a method for transitioning from LIBOR to an alternative benchmark rate, and it is not yet known how courts or regulators will view the transition away from LIBOR to an alternative benchmark rate. As a result, it is difficult to predict the impact that a cessation of LIBOR would have on the value and performance of our existing financial instruments.
As of June 30, 2021, we have identified approximately $248 million of variable-rate loans for which the repricing index was tied to LIBOR and the loan maturity date is after December 31, 2021. Our loan agreements generally allow us to choose a new alternative reference rate based upon comparable information if the current index is no longer available. We continue to originate variable-rate loans that adjust based on LIBOR.
The market transition away from LIBOR to an alternative reference rate is complex. If LIBOR rates are no longer available, and we are required to implement replacement reference rates for the calculation of interest rates under our loan agreements with borrowers, we may incur significant expense in effecting the transition and we may be subject to disputes or litigation with our borrowers over the appropriateness or comparability to LIBOR of the replacement reference rates. The
replacement reference rates could also result in a reduction in our interest income. We may also receive inquiries and other actions from regulators in respect to our preparation and readiness for the replacement of LIBOR with alternative reference rates.
These uncertainties regarding the possible cessation of LIBOR or their resolution could have a material adverse impact on our funding costs, net interest margin, loan and other asset values, asset-liability management strategies, and other aspects of our business and financial results.
We are exposed to financial risks that may be partially mitigated but cannot be eliminated by our hedging activities, which carry their own risks.
We have used, and may in the future use, financial instruments for hedging and risk management purposes in order to protect against possible fluctuations in interest rates, or for other reasons that we deem appropriate. In particular, we expect our interest rate risk to increase as our home loans business grows. However, any current and future hedges we enter into will not completely eliminate the risk associated with rising interest rates and our hedging activities may prove to be ineffective.
The success of our hedging strategy will be subject to our ability to correctly assess counterparty risk and the degree of correlation between the performance of the instruments used in the hedging strategy and any changes in interest rates, along with our ability to continually recalculate, readjust and execute hedges in an efficient and timely manner. Therefore, though we may enter into transactions to seek to reduce risks, unanticipated changes may create a more negative consequence than if we had not engaged in any such hedging transactions. Moreover, for a variety of reasons, we may not seek to establish a perfect correlation between such hedging instruments and the instruments being hedged. Any such imperfect correlation may prevent us from achieving the effect of the intended hedge and expose us to risk of loss. Any failure to manage our hedging positions properly or inability to enter into hedging instruments upon acceptable terms could affect our financial condition and results of operations.
Funding and Liquidity Risks
If we are unable to retain and/or increase our current sources of funding and secure new or alternative methods of financing, our ability to finance additional loans and introduce new products will be negatively impacted.
Historically, in addition to the issuance of equity, we have funded our operations and capital expenditures primarily through access to the capital markets through sales of our loans, access to secured and unsecured borrowing facilities and utilization of securitization financing from consolidated and nonconsolidated VIEs. In each of these instances (other than for certain whole loan sales of home loans), we retain the servicing rights to our loans from which we earn a servicing fee. In securitization financing transactions, we transfer a pool of loans originated by SoFi Lending Corp. to a VIE which is sponsored by SoFi Lending Corp. and we retain risk in the VIE, typically in the form of asset-backed bonds and residual interest investments. As of June 30, 2021, we had 13 VIEs consolidated on our balance sheet. We rely on each of these outlets for liquidity and the loss or reduction of any one of these outlets could materially adversely impact our business. There can be no assurance that we will be able to successfully access the securitization markets at any given time, and in the event of a sudden or unexpected shortage of funds in the banking and financial system, we cannot be sure that we will be able to maintain necessary levels of funding without incurring high funding costs, a reduction in the term of funding instruments, an increase in the amount of equity we are required to hold or the liquidation of certain assets. Furthermore, there is risk that there will be no market at all for our loans either from whole loan buyers or through investments in securities backed by our loans.
We may require capital in excess of amounts we currently anticipate, and depending on market conditions and other factors, we may not be able to obtain additional capital for our current operations or anticipated future growth on reasonable terms or at all. As the volume of loans that we originate, and the increased suite of products that we make available to members, increases, we may be required to expand the size of our debt warehousing facilities or seek additional sources of capital. The availability of these financing sources depends on many factors, some of which are outside of our control. We may also experience the occurrence of events of default or breaches of financial performance or other covenants under our debt agreements, which could reduce or terminate our access to institutional funding.
If we are unable to increase our current sources of funding and secure new or alternative methods of financing, our ability to finance additional loans and to develop and offer new products, such as SoFi Credit Card, will be negatively impacted. The interest rates, advance rates and other costs of new, renewed or amended facilities may also be higher than those currently in effect. If we are unable to renew or otherwise replace these facilities or generally arrange new or alternative methods of financing on favorable terms, we may be forced to curtail our origination of loans or reduce lending or other operations, which would have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flows.
If one or more of our warehouse facilities, on which we are highly dependent, is terminated, we may be unable to find replacement financing on favorable terms, or at all, which would have a material adverse effect on our business and financial condition.
We require a significant amount of short-term funding capacity for loans we originate. As of June 30, 2021, we had $5.9 billion of warehouse loan funding capacity through 19 financing partners under our warehouse facilities. Additionally, consistent with industry practice, all of our existing warehouse facilities require periodic renewal. If any of our committed warehouse facilities are terminated or are not renewed or our uncommitted facilities are not honored, we may be unable to find replacement financing on favorable terms, or at all, and we might not be able to originate an acceptable or sustainable volume of loans, which would have a material adverse effect on our business. Additionally, as our business continues to expand, we may need additional warehouse funding capacity for the loans we originate. There can be no assurance that, in the future, we will be able to obtain additional warehouse funding capacity on favorable terms, on a timely basis, or at all.
If we fail to meet or satisfy any of the financial or other covenants included in our warehouse facilities, we would be in default under one or more of these facilities and our lenders could elect to declare all amounts outstanding under the facilities to be immediately due and payable, enforce their interests against loans pledged under such facilities and restrict our ability to make additional borrowings. Certain of these facilities also contain cross-default provisions. These restrictions may interfere with our ability to obtain financing or to engage in other business activities, which could materially and adversely affect us. There can be no assurance that we will maintain compliance with all financial and other covenants included in our warehouse facilities in the future.
Increases in member default rates on loans could make us and our loans less attractive to whole loan buyers, lenders under debt warehouse facilities and investors in securitizations which may adversely affect our access to financing and our business.
Increases in member default rates could make us and our loans less attractive to our existing or prospective funding sources, including whole loan buyers, securitizations and debt warehousing facilities. If our existing funding sources do not achieve their desired financial returns or if they suffer losses, they or prospective funding sources may increase the cost of providing future financing or refuse to provide future financing or purchase loans on terms acceptable to us or at all.
Our securitizations are non-recourse to SoFi Technologies and are collateralized by the pool of our loans pledged to the relevant securitization issuer. If the loans securing our securitizations fail to perform as expected, the lenders under our warehouse facilities and investors in our securitizations who purchase our loans, or future lenders or investors in similar arrangements, may increase the cost of providing future financing or refuse to provide future financing or purchase loans on terms acceptable to us or at all.
If we were to be unable to arrange new or alternative methods of financing on favorable terms, we may have to curtail or cease our origination of loans, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flows.
We make representations and warranties in connection with the transfer of loans to whole loan purchasers, government-sponsored enterprises, such as the FNMA, and our debt warehouse lenders and securitization trusts. If such representations and warranties are not correct, we could be required to repurchase loans or indemnify the purchaser, which could have an adverse effect on our ability to operate and fund our business.
We sell the home loans we originate to third parties, including counterparties like the FNMA. In the ordinary course of business, we are exposed to liability under representations and warranties made to purchasers of home loans. We make representations and warranties when we sell loans to third parties and in our financing transactions. Such representations and warranties typically include, among other things, that the loans were originated and serviced in compliance with law and with our credit risk origination policy and servicing guidelines and that, to the best of our knowledge, each loan was originated by us without any fraud or misrepresentation on our part or on the part of the borrower or any other person. In addition, purchasers require loans to meet strict underwriting and loan term criteria in order to be eligible for purchase. If those representations and warranties are breached as to a given loan, or if a certain loan we sell does not meet the relevant eligibility criteria, we will be obligated to repurchase the loan, typically at a purchase price equal to the then-outstanding principal balance of such loan, plus accrued interest and any premium. We may also be required to indemnify the purchaser for losses resulting from the breach of representations and warranties. In connection with our whole loan sales, we also typically covenant to repurchase any loan that enters delinquent status within the first thirty to sixty days following origination of the loan. Any significant increase in our obligation to repurchase home loans or indemnify purchasers of home loans, could have a significant adverse impact on our cash flows, even if they are reimbursable, and could also have a detrimental effect on our business and financial condition. If
any such repurchase event occurs on a large scale, we may not have sufficient funds to meet our repurchase obligations, which would result in a default under the underlying agreements. Moreover, we may not be able to resell or refinance loans repurchased due to a breach of a representation or warranty or we may sell such loans below par. Any such event could have an adverse impact on our business, operating results, financial condition and prospects.
Our agreements with our lenders contain a number of early payment triggers and covenants. A breach of such triggers or covenants or other terms of such agreements could result in an early amortization, default, and/or acceleration of the related funding facilities which could materially impact our operations.
Primary funding sources available to support the maintenance and growth of our business include, among others, securitizations, debt warehouse facilities and corporate revolving debt. Our liquidity would be materially adversely affected by our inability to comply with various covenants and other specified requirements set forth in our agreements with our lenders which could result in the early amortization, default and/or acceleration of our existing facilities. Such covenants and requirements include financial covenants, portfolio performance covenants and other events. For a description of these covenants, requirements and events, see “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations — Liquidity and Capital Resources”.
During an early amortization period or occurrence of an event of default, principal collections from the loans in our asset-based facilities would be applied to repay principal under such facilities rather than being available to fund newly originated loans. During the occurrence of an event of default under any of our facilities, the applicable lenders could accelerate the related debt and such lenders’ commitments to extend further credit under the related facility, if any, would terminate. If we were unable to repay the amounts due and payable under such facilities and securitizations, the applicable lenders and noteholders could seek remedies, including against the collateral pledged under such facilities and by the securitization trust. An acceleration of the debt under certain facilities could also lead to a default under other facilities and, in certain instances, our hedging arrangements, due to cross-acceleration provisions.
An early amortization event or event of default would negatively impact our liquidity, including our ability to originate new loans, and require us to rely on alternative funding sources, which might increase our funding costs or which might not be available when needed. If we were unable to arrange new or alternative methods of financing on favorable terms, we might have to curtail the origination of loans, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flows, which in turn could have a material adverse effect on our ability to meet our obligations under our facilities.
We require substantial capital and, in the future, may require additional capital to pursue our business objectives and achieve recurring profitability. If adequate capital is not available to us, including due to the cost and availability of funding in the capital markets, our business, operating results and financial condition may be harmed.
Since our founding, we have raised substantial equity financing to support the growth of our business. Because we intend to continue to make investments to support the growth of our business, we may require additional capital to pursue our business objectives and growth strategy and respond to business opportunities, challenges or unforeseen circumstances, including lending to our members, increasing our marketing expenditures to attract new members and improve our brand awareness, developing our other products, introducing new services, further expanding internationally in existing or new countries or further improving existing offerings and services, enhancing our operating infrastructure and potentially acquiring complementary businesses and technologies. Accordingly, on a regular basis we need, or we may need, to engage in debt or equity financings to secure additional funds. However, additional funds may not be available when we need them, in amounts we need, or permitted to be applied to specific use cases, on terms that are acceptable to us or at all. In particular, we may require additional access to capital to support our lending operations. Volatility in the credit markets in general or in the market for student, personal and home loans and credit cards in particular may also have an adverse effect on our ability to obtain debt financing. Furthermore, the cost of our borrowing may increase due to market volatility, changes in the risk premiums required by lenders or if traditional sources of debt capital are unavailable. Volatility or depressed valuations or trading prices in the equity markets may similarly adversely affect our ability to obtain equity financing. If we raise additional funds through further issuances of equity or convertible debt securities, our existing stockholders could suffer significant dilution and any new equity securities we issue could have rights, preferences and privileges superior to those of holders of our common stock.
Maintaining adequate liquidity is crucial to our securities brokerage and our money services business operations, including key functions such as transaction settlement, custody requirements and margin lending. We meet our liquidity needs primarily from working capital and cash generated by customer activity, as well as from external debt and equity financing. Increases in the number of customers, fluctuations in customer cash or deposit balances, as well as market conditions or changes in
regulatory treatment of customer deposits, may affect our ability to meet our liquidity needs. Our broker-dealer subsidiary, SoFi Securities, is subject to Rule 15c3-1 under the Exchange Act, which specifies minimum capital requirements intended to ensure the general financial soundness and liquidity of broker-dealers, and SoFi Securities, LLC is subject to Rule 15c3-3 under the Exchange Act, which requires broker-dealers to maintain certain liquidity reserves.
A reduction in our liquidity position could reduce our customers’ confidence in us, which could result in the withdrawal of customer assets and loss of customers, or could cause us to fail to satisfy broker-dealer or other regulatory capital guidelines, which may result in immediate suspension of securities activities, regulatory prohibitions against certain business practices, increased regulatory inquiries and reporting requirements, increased costs, fines, penalties or other sanctions, including suspension or expulsion by the SEC, FINRA or other self-regulatory organizations (“SROs”) or state regulators, and could ultimately lead to the liquidation of our broker-dealers or other regulated entities. Factors which may adversely affect our liquidity positions include temporary liquidity demands due to timing differences between brokerage transaction settlements and the availability of segregated cash balances, timing differences between digital asset transaction settlements between us and our digital asset market makers and between us and our digital asset customers, fluctuations in cash held in customer accounts, a significant increase in our margin lending activities, increased regulatory capital requirements, changes in regulatory guidance or interpretations, other regulatory changes or a loss of market or customer confidence resulting in unanticipated withdrawals of customer assets. We expect that we will continue to use our available cash to fund our lending activities and help scale our Financial Services segment. To supplement our cash resources, we may seek to enter into additional securitizations and whole loan sale agreements or increase the size of existing debt warehousing facilities, increase the size of, or replace, our revolving credit facility, and pursue other potential options. If we are unable to adequately maintain our cash resources, we may delay non-essential capital expenditures, implement cost cutting procedures, delay or reduce future hiring, discontinue the pursuit of our strategic objectives and growth strategies, or reduce our rate of future originations compared to current level. There can be no assurance that we can obtain sufficient sources of external capital to support the growth of our business. Delays in doing so or failure to do so may require us to reduce loan originations or reduce our operations, which would harm our ability to pursue our business objectives as well as harm our business, operating results and financial condition.
We are unable to finance all of the receivables that we originate or other assets that we hold, and that illiquidity could result in a negative impact on our financial condition.
We operate a gain on sale origination model, the success of which is tied to our ability to finance the assets that we originate. Certain of our assets, however, are ineligible for sale to a whole loan buyer or securitization trust, or are ineligible for, or are subject to a higher advance rate under, warehouse funding, each of which has specific eligibility criteria for receivables it purchases or holds as collateral. Ineligible receivables include, among others, those in default or that are delinquent, receivables with defects in their origination or servicing, including fraud, or receivables generated under origination guidelines and credit policies that are no longer in effect. In addition, many of our warehouse funding sources contain excess concentration limits for loans in forbearance or with specific loan level characteristics such as time-to-maturity or loan type. Once these limits have been exceeded the advance rate applied to those receivables becomes less advantageous to us. If we are unable to sell or reasonably fund these receivables, we are required to hold them on our balance sheet which, in sufficient volume, negatively impact our financial condition.
In addition to the receivables described above, we also hold on balance sheet certain risk retention assets that we are not able to pledge to our risk retention repurchase facilities. These risk retention assets include residuals from our securitization trusts that are either ineligible for transfer or are subject to European Union regulations that prohibit transfer. The illiquidity of these positions may negatively impact our financial condition.
SoFi Credit Card is a relatively new product and any failure to execute our funding strategy for it could have a negative impact on our business, operating results and financial condition.
SoFi Credit Card is a new product and we have limited experience originating and administering it. We began originating credit card receivables in the third quarter of 2020 (and launched the product to a broader market in the fourth quarter of 2020). We anticipate establishing a credit card receivable securitization program in the future. There is no guarantee, however, that we will be successful in establishing a securitization program for these assets. In the event we are unable to finance our credit card receivables, we may be required to hold those assets on balance sheet, sell them for a loss, any of which could have a negative impact on our business, operating results and financial condition.
Regulatory, Tax and Other Legal Risks
We are subject to extensive, complex and evolving laws, rules and regulations, which are interpreted and enforced by various federal, state and local government authorities.
We are subject to various federal, state and local regulatory regimes. The principal policy objectives of these regulatory regimes are to protect borrowers, investors, and other financial services customers and to prevent fraud, money laundering, and terrorist financing. Laws and regulations, among other things, impose licensing and qualifications requirements; require various disclosures and consents; mandate or prohibit certain terms and conditions for various financial products; prohibit discrimination based on certain prohibited bases; prohibit unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices; require us to submit to examinations by federal, state and local regulatory regimes; and require us to maintain various policies, procedures and internal controls. Monitoring and complying with all applicable laws and regulations can be difficult and costly. Failure to comply with any of these requirements may result in, among other things, enforcement action by governmental authorities, lawsuits, monetary damages, fines or monetary penalties, restitution or other payments to borrowers or investors, modifications to business practices, revocation of required licenses or registrations, voiding of loan contracts and reputational harm. See Part II, Item 1 “Legal Proceedings”.
Our Lending segment is highly regulated, and if we fail to comply with federal and state consumer protection laws, rules, regulations and guidance, our business could be adversely affected.
We are subject to extensive and complex rules and regulations, licensing and examination by various federal, state and local government authorities designed to protect borrowers and customers of other financial services. The CFPB, an agency which oversees compliance with and enforces federal consumer financial protection laws, has supervisory authority over the student and mortgage lending activity in which we engage. In addition, the CFPB has substantial power to regulate financial products and services received by consumers from both bank and non-bank lenders, including rulemaking authority in enumerated areas of federal law traditionally applicable to consumer lending such as truth in lending, fair credit reporting and fair debt collection. The CFPB has the authority to pursue enforcement actions against companies that offer or provide consumer financial products or services, including lenders and loan servicers that engage in unfair, deceptive or abusive acts or practices (“UDAAP”). The CFPB may also seek a range of other remedies, including rescission of contracts, refund of money, return of real property, restitution, disgorgement of profits or other compensation for unjust enrichment, damages, public notification of the violation, and “conduct” restrictions (i.e., future limits on the target’s activities or functions). In addition, where a company has violated Title X of the Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the “Dodd-Frank Act”) or CFPB regulations under Title X, the Dodd-Frank Act empowers state attorneys general and state regulators to bring certain civil actions.
We hold lending licenses or similar authorizations in multiple states, each of which has the authority to supervise and examine our activities. As a licensed consumer lender, mortgage lender, loan broker, collection agency and loan servicer in certain states, we are subject to examinations by state agencies in those states. Similarly, we are subject to licensure requirements and regulation as an education loan servicer in multiple states. An administrative proceeding, litigation, investigation or regulatory proceeding relating to allegations or findings of the violation of such laws by us, any subservicer we engage, or our collection agents, could impair our ability to service and collect on our loans or could result in requirements that we pay damages, fines or penalties and/or cancel the balance or other amounts owing under one or more of our loans. There is no assurance that allegations of violations of the provisions of applicable federal or state consumer protection laws will not be asserted against us, any subservicer we engage or our collection agents or other prior owners of our loans in the future. To the extent it is determined that any of our loans were not originated in accordance with all applicable laws, we may be obligated to repurchase such loan from a whole loan buyer, securitization trust or warehouse facility.
We must comply with federal, state and local consumer protection laws including, among others, the federal and state UDAAP laws, the Federal Trade Commission Act, the Truth in Lending Act, the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, the Fair Housing Act, the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, the Secure and Fair Enforcement for Mortgage Licensing Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”), the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, the Military Lending Act, the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, the CARES Act, and the Dodd-Frank Act. We must also comply with laws on advertising, as well as privacy laws, including the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (the “TCPA”), the Telemarketing Sales Rule, the CAN-SPAM Act, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, and the newly enacted California Consumer Privacy Act (the “CCPA”). Privacy and data security concerns, data collection and transfer restrictions, contractual obligations and U.S. laws and regulations related to data privacy, security and protection could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Compliance with applicable law is costly, and our failure to comply with applicable federal, state and local law could lead to:
•loss of our licenses and approvals to engage in our lending and servicing businesses;
•damage to our reputation in the industry;
•governmental investigations and enforcement actions;
•administrative fines and penalties and litigation;
•civil and criminal liability, including class action lawsuits;
•inability to enforce loan agreements;
•diminished ability to sell loans that we originate or purchase, requirements to sell such loans at a discount compared to other loans or repurchase or address indemnification claims from purchasers of such loans;
•loss or restriction of warehouse facilities to fund loans;
•inability to raise capital; and
•inability to execute on our business strategy, including our growth plans.
For example, in the first quarter of 2019, we were subject to a consent order from the Federal Trade Commission (the “FTC Consent Order”), which resolved allegations that we misrepresented how much money student loan borrowers have saved or would save from financing their loans with us, in violation of the Federal Trade Commission Act. Under the consent order, we are prohibited from misrepresenting to consumers how much money they would save by using our products, unless the claims are backed up by reliable evidence.
While we have developed and monitor policies and procedures designed to assist in compliance with laws and regulations and the FTC Consent Order, no assurance can be given that our compliance policies and procedures will be effective and that we will not be subject to fines and penalties, including with respect to any alleged noncompliance with the FTC Consent Order. Ambiguities in applicable statutes and regulations may leave uncertainty with respect to permitted or restricted conduct and may make compliance with laws, and risk assessment decisions with respect to compliance with laws difficult and uncertain. In addition, ambiguities make it difficult, in certain circumstances, to determine if, and how, compliance violations may be cured. We may fail to comply with applicable statutes and regulations even if acting in good faith, or because governmental bodies or courts interpret existing laws or regulations in a more restrictive manner, which may lead to regulatory investigations, governmental enforcement actions or private causes of action with respect to our compliance. To resolve issues raised in examinations or other governmental actions, we may be required to take various corrective actions, including changing certain business practices, making refunds or taking other actions that could be financially or competitively detrimental to us. In some cases, regardless of fault, it may be less time-consuming or costly to settle these matters, which may require us to implement certain changes to our business practices, provide remediation to certain individuals or make a settlement payment to a given party or regulatory body. There is no assurance that any future settlements will not have a material adverse effect on our business.
We are subject to federal and state regulatory requirements that result in substantial compliance costs, and our business would be adversely affected if our licenses are impaired as a result of non-compliance with those requirements.
We hold state licenses in connection with our lending activities, our student loan servicing activities as well as our money services business activities. We must comply with state licensing requirements and varying compliance requirements in all the states in which we operate and the District of Columbia. Changes in licensing laws may result in increased disclosure requirements, increased fees, or may impose other conditions to licensing that we or our personnel are unable to meet. In most states in which we operate, a regulatory agency or agencies regulate and enforce laws relating to loan servicers, brokers, and originators, collection agencies, and money services businesses. We are subject to periodic examinations by state and other regulators in the jurisdictions in which we conduct business, which can result in increases in our administrative costs and refunds to borrowers of certain fees earned by us, and we may be required to pay substantial penalties imposed by those regulators due to compliance errors, or we may lose our license or our ability to do business in the jurisdiction otherwise may be impaired. Fines and penalties incurred in one jurisdiction may cause investigations or other actions by regulators in other jurisdictions.
We may not be able to maintain all currently requisite licenses and permits. If we change or expand our business activities, we may be required to obtain additional licenses before we can engage in those activities. If we apply for a new license, a regulator may determine that we were required to do so at an earlier point in time, and as a result, may impose penalties or refuse to issue the license, which could require us to modify or limit our activities in the relevant state. For example, in 2019, we applied, through a subsidiary, for a Pennsylvania Mortgage Servicer license. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, acting through the Department of Banking and Securities, issued a consent agreement and order ordering us to pay a $110,000 fine for engaging in the home loan servicing activity prior to obtaining the license.
In addition, the states that currently do not provide extensive regulation of our business may later choose to do so, and if such states so act, we may not be able to obtain or maintain all requisite licenses and permits, which could require us to modify or limit our activities in the relevant state or states. The failure to satisfy those and other regulatory requirements could result in a default under our warehouse facilities, other financial arrangements and/or servicing agreements and thereby have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Our compliance and risk management policies and procedures as a regulated financial services company may not be fully effective in identifying or mitigating compliance and risk exposure in all market environments or against all types of risk.
As a financial services company operating in the securities industry, among others, our business exposes us to a number of heightened risks. We have devoted significant resources to develop our compliance and risk management policies and procedures and will continue to do so, but there can be no assurance these are sufficient, especially as our business is rapidly growing and evolving. Nonetheless, our limited operating history, evolving business and rapid growth make it difficult to predict all of the risks and challenges we may encounter and may increase the risk that our policies and procedures to identify, monitor and manage compliance risks may not be fully effective in mitigating our exposure in all market environments or against all types of risk. Further, some controls are manual and are subject to inherent limitations and errors in oversight. This could cause our compliance and other risk management strategies to be ineffective. Other compliance and risk management methods depend upon the evaluation of information regarding markets, customers, catastrophe occurrence or other matters that are publicly available or otherwise accessible to us, which may not always be accurate, complete, up-to-date or properly evaluated. Insurance and other traditional risk-shifting tools may be held by or available to us in order to manage certain exposures, but they are subject to terms such as deductibles, coinsurance, limits and policy exclusions, as well as risk of counterparty denial of coverage, default or insolvency. Any failure to maintain effective compliance and other risk management strategies could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. We are also exposed to heightened regulatory risk because our business is subject to extensive regulation and oversight in a variety of areas, and such regulations are subject to evolving interpretations and application and it can be difficult to predict how they may be applied to our business, particularly as we introduce new products and services and expand into new jurisdictions. Additionally, the regulatory landscape involving digital assets is constantly evolving and SoFi Digital Assets, LLC may be subject to fines, penalties or loss of regulatory licenses if the SEC or any other regulators issue new regulations or interpretive guidance related to digital assets that prohibit any of our current business practices. Also, due to market volatility, it is difficult to predict how much capital we will need in the future to meet net capital requirements.. Any perceived or actual breach of laws and regulations could negatively impact our business, financial condition or results of operations. It is possible that these laws and regulations could be interpreted or applied in a manner that would prohibit, alter, or impair our existing or planned products and services.
We may become subject to enforcement actions or litigation as a result of our failure to comply with laws and regulations, even though noncompliance was inadvertent or unintentional.
We maintain systems and procedures designed to ensure that we comply with applicable laws and regulations; however, some legal/regulatory frameworks provide for the imposition of fines or penalties for noncompliance even though the noncompliance was inadvertent or unintentional and even though there were systems and procedures designed to ensure compliance in place at the time.
For example, we engage in outbound telephone and text communications with consumers, and accordingly must comply with a number of statutes and regulations that govern said communications and the use of automatic telephone dialing systems (“ATDS”), and artificial or pre-recorded voice, including the TCPA and Telemarketing Sales Rules. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (the “FCC”), and the FTC have responsibility for regulating various aspects of these laws. Among other requirements, the TCPA requires us to obtain prior express written consent for certain telemarketing calls and to adhere to “do-not-call” registry requirements which, in part, mandate we maintain and regularly update lists of consumers who have chosen not to be called and restrict calls to consumers who are on the national do-not-call list. Many states have similar consumer protection laws regulating telemarketing. These laws limit our ability to communicate with consumers and reduce the
effectiveness of our marketing programs. As currently construed, the TCPA does not distinguish between voice and data, and, as such, SMS/MMS messages are also “calls” for the purpose of TCPA obligations and restrictions.
For violations of the TCPA, the law provides for a private right of action under which a plaintiff may recover monetary damages of $500 for each call or text made in violation of the prohibitions on calls made using an “artificial or pre-recorded voice” or an ATDS. A court may treble the amount of damages upon a finding of a “willful or knowing” violation. There is no statutory cap on maximum aggregate exposure (although some courts have applied in TCPA class actions constitutional limits on excessive penalties). An action may be brought by the FCC, a state attorney general, an individual, or a class of individuals. Like other companies that rely on telephone and text communications, we may be subject to putative class action suits alleging violations of the TCPA. If in the future we are found to have violated the TCPA, the amount of damages and potential liability could be extensive and adversely impact our business. Accordingly, were such a class certified or if we are unable to successfully defend such a suit, then TCPA damages could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations and financial condition.
Changes in consumer finance and other applicable laws and regulations, as well as changes in government enforcement policies and priorities, may negatively impact the management of our business, results of operations, ability to offer certain products or the terms and conditions upon which they are offered, and ability to compete.
Consumer finance regulation is constantly changing, and new laws or regulations, or new interpretations of existing laws or regulations, could have a materially adverse impact on our ability to operate as currently intended, and cause us to incur significant expense in order to ensure compliance. Federal and state financial services regulators are also enforcing existing laws, regulations, and rules aggressively and enhancing their supervisory expectations regarding the management of legal and regulatory compliance risks. These regulatory changes and uncertainties make our business planning more difficult and could result in changes to our business model and potentially adversely impact our results of operations. As a non-bank lender, we are subject to state licensing and usury laws. Furthermore, to the extent applicable, these laws can impose specific statutory liabilities upon creditors who fail to comply with their provisions and may affect the enforceability of a loan. If the application of consumer protection laws were to cause our loans, or any of the terms of our loans, to be unenforceable against the relevant borrowers, our business will be materially adversely affected. Even if we seek to comply with licensing and other requirements that we believe may be applicable to us, if we are found to not have complied with applicable laws, we could lose one or more of our licenses or authorizations or face other sanctions or penalties or be required to obtain a license in one or more such jurisdictions, which may have an adverse effect on our business.
Proposals to change the statutes affecting financial services companies are frequently introduced in Congress and state legislatures that, if enacted, may affect their operating environment in substantial and unpredictable ways. In addition, numerous federal and state regulators have the authority to promulgate or change regulations that could have a similar effect on our operating environment. We cannot determine with any degree of certainty whether any such legislative or regulatory proposals will be enacted and, if enacted, the ultimate impact that any such potential legislation or implementing regulations, or any such potential regulatory actions by federal or state regulators, would have upon our business.
New laws, regulations, policy or changes in enforcement of existing laws or regulations applicable to our business, or reexamination of current practices, could adversely impact our profitability, limit our ability to continue existing or pursue new business activities, require us to change certain of our business practices, affect retention of key personnel, or expose us to additional costs (including increased compliance costs and/or customer remediation). These changes also may require us to invest significant resources, and devote significant management attention, to make any necessary changes and could adversely affect our business.
We are subject to the risk that regulatory or enforcement agencies and/or consumer advocacy groups may assert that our business practices may violate certain rules, laws and regulations, including anti-discrimination statutes.
Anti-discrimination statutes, such as the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and state law equivalents, prohibit creditors from discriminating against loan applicants and borrowers based on certain characteristics, such as race, religion and national origin. Various federal regulatory and enforcement departments and agencies, including the Department of Justice and CFPB, take the position that these laws apply not only to intentional discrimination, but also to neutral practices that have a disparate impact on a group that shares a characteristic that a creditor may not consider in making credit decisions. State and federal regulators, as well as consumer advocacy groups and plaintiffs’ attorneys, are focusing greater attention on “disparate impact” claims. Similarly, these regulatory agencies and litigants could take the position that the geographical footprint within which we conduct lending activity or the manner in which we advertise loans, disproportionately excludes potential borrowers belonging to a protected class, and constitutes unlawful “redlining”. In addition to reputational harm,
violations of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and the Fair Housing Act can result in actual damages, punitive damages, injunctive or equitable relief, attorneys’ fees and civil money penalties.
Our relationships with third-party financial institutions may subject us to regulation as a service provider.
We have relationships with third parties that are subject to various federal, state, local and foreign laws and regulations. Our contracts with such parties may require us to comply with the laws to which such third parties are subject. As a service provider or partner to financial institutions, such as banks, we are or may become subject to regulatory oversight and examination by the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council, an interagency body of the Federal Reserve, the OCC, the FDIC, and various other federal and state regulatory authorities. In addition, independent auditors annually review several of our operations to provide reports on internal controls for our partners’ auditors and regulators. We also may be subject to possible review by state agencies that regulate our partners.
Changes to laws and regulations and enhanced regulatory oversight of our partners and us may compel us to divert more resources to compliance, terminate or modify our relationships with our partners, or otherwise limit the manner in which we conduct our business. If we are unable to adapt our products and services to conform to applicable laws and regulations, or if these laws and regulations have a negative impact on our partners, we may experience losses or increased operating costs, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Our Financial Services segment is subject to the regulatory framework applicable to investment managers and broker-dealers, including regulation by the SEC and FINRA.
We offer investment management services through SoFi Wealth LLC, an internet based investment adviser and SoFi Capital Advisors, LLC, which sponsors private investment funds that invest in asset-backed securitizations. Both SoFi Wealth LLC and SoFi Capital Advisors LLC are registered as investment advisers under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, as amended (the “Advisers Act”), and are subject to regulation by the SEC. SoFi Securities is an affiliated registered broker-dealer and FINRA member. We offer cash management accounts, which are brokerage products, through SoFi Securities.
The investment advisers are subject to the anti-fraud provisions of the Advisers Act and to fiduciary duties derived from these provisions, which apply to our relationships with our members who are advisory clients, as well as the funds we manage. These provisions and duties impose restrictions and obligations on us with respect to our dealings with our members, fund investors and our investments, including for example restrictions on transactions with our affiliates. Our investment advisers have in the past and will in the future be subject to periodic SEC examinations. Our investment advisers are also subject to other requirements under the Advisers Act and related regulations primarily intended to benefit advisory members. These additional requirements relate to matters including maintaining effective and comprehensive compliance programs, record-keeping and reporting and disclosure requirements. The Advisers Act generally grants the SEC broad administrative powers, including the power to limit or restrict an investment adviser from conducting advisory activities in the event it fails to comply with federal securities laws. Additional sanctions that may be imposed for failure to comply with applicable requirements include the prohibition of individuals from associating with an investment adviser, the revocation of registrations and other censures and fines. Even if an investigation or proceeding did not result in a sanction or the sanction imposed against us or our personnel by a regulator were small in monetary amount, the adverse publicity relating to the investigation, proceeding or imposition of these sanctions could harm our reputation and cause us to lose existing members or fail to gain new members. See Part II, Item 1 “Legal Proceedings”.
Our subsidiary, SoFi Securities, is an affiliated registered broker-dealer and FINRA member. The securities industry is highly regulated, including under federal, state and other applicable laws, rules, and regulations, and we may be adversely affected by regulatory changes related to suitability of financial products, supervision, sales practices, advertising, application of fiduciary standards, best execution, and market structure, any of which could limit our business and damage our reputation. FINRA has adopted extensive regulatory requirements relating to sales practices, advertising, registration of personnel, compliance and supervision, and compensation and disclosure, to which SoFi Securities and its personnel are subject. FINRA and the SEC also have the authority to conduct periodic examinations of SoFi Securities, and may also conduct administrative proceedings. Additionally, material expansions of the business in which SoFi Securities engages are subject to approval by FINRA. This could delay, or even prevent, the firm’s ability to expand its securities and brokerage offerings in the future.
From time to time, SoFi Securities and SoFi Wealth may be threatened with or named as a defendant in lawsuits, arbitrations and administrative claims. The firm is also subject to periodic regulatory examinations and inspections by regulators (including the SEC and FINRA). Compliance and trading problems or other deficiencies or weakness that are reported to regulators, such as the SEC and FINRA, by dissatisfied customers or others, or that are identified by regulators themselves are investigated by such regulators, and may, if pursued, result in formal claims being filed against SoFi Securities
and SoFi Wealth by customers or disciplinary action being taken by regulators against the firm or its employees. Our failure to comply with applicable laws or regulations or our own policies and procedures could result in fines, litigation, suspensions of personnel or other sanctions, which could have a material effect on our overall financial results. Even if a sanction imposed against us or our personnel is small in monetary amount, the adverse publicity arising from the imposition of sanctions against us by regulators could harm our reputation and our brand and lead to material legal, regulatory and financial exposure (including fines and other penalties), cause us to lose existing members or fail to gain new members. In addition, in the normal course of business, SoFi Securities and SoFi Wealth discuss matters with its regulators raised during regulatory examinations or otherwise subject to their inquiry. These matters could result in censures, fines, penalties or other sanctions.
Evolving laws and government regulations could adversely affect our Financial Services segment.
Governmental regulation of global financial markets and financial institutions is pervasive and continually evolving. This includes regulation of investment managers and activities, through the implementation of compliance, risk management and anti-money laundering procedures; restrictions on specific types of investments and the provision and use of leverage; capital requirements; limitations on compensation to managers; and books and records, reporting and disclosure requirements. The effects on us of future regulation, or of changes in the interpretation and enforcement of existing regulation, could have an adverse effect on our investment strategies or our business model. Policy changes and regulatory reform by the U.S. federal government may create regulatory uncertainty for our members’ portfolios and our investment strategies and adversely affect our profitability.
Our business and reputation may be harmed by changes in business, economic or political conditions that impact global financial markets, or by a systemic market event.
As a financial services company, our business, results of operations and reputation are directly affected by elements beyond our control, such as economic and political conditions, changes in the volatility in financial markets (including volatility as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic), significant increases in the volatility or trading volume of particular securities, broad trends in business and finance, changes in volume of securities trading generally, changes in the markets in which such transactions occur and changes in how such transactions are processed. These elements can arise suddenly and the full impact of such conditions can remain uncertain. A prolonged weakness in equity markets, such as a slowdown causing reduction in trading volume in securities, derivatives or digital assets markets, may result in reduced revenues and would have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Significant downturns in the securities markets or in general economic and political conditions may also cause individuals to be reluctant to make their own investment decisions and thus decrease the demand for our products and services and could also result in our customers reducing their engagement with our platform. Conversely, significant upturns in the securities markets or in general economic and political conditions may cause individuals to be less proactive in seeking ways to improve the returns on their trading or investment decisions and, thus, decrease the demand for our products and services. Any of these changes could cause our future performance to be uncertain or unpredictable, and could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
In addition, a prolonged weakness in the U.S. equity markets or a general economic downturn could cause our customers to incur losses, which in turn could cause our brand and reputation to suffer. If our reputation is harmed, the willingness of our existing customers, and potential new customers, to do business with us could be negatively impacted, which would adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
The regulatory regime governing blockchain technologies and digital assets is uncertain, and new regulations or policies may alter our business practices with respect to digital assets.
We currently offer virtual currency and digital asset-related trading services through a subsidiary that is licensed and registered with various governmental authorities as a money service business, money transmitter, virtual currency business, or the equivalent. Although many regulators have provided some guidance, regulation of digital assets based on or incorporating blockchain, such as digital assets and digital asset exchanges, remains uncertain and will continue to evolve. Further, regulation varies significantly among international, federal, state and local jurisdictions. As blockchain networks and blockchain assets have grown in popularity and in market size, federal and state agencies are increasingly taking interest in, and in certain cases regulating, their use and operation. Treatment of virtual currencies continues to evolve under federal and state law. Many U.S. regulators, including the SEC, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”), the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, (the “CFTC”), the Internal Revenue Service (the “IRS”), and state regulators including the New York State Department of Financial Services (the “NYSDFS”), have made official pronouncements or issued guidance or rules regarding the treatment of Bitcoin and other digital currencies. The IRS released guidance treating virtual currency as property that is not currency for U.S. federal income tax purposes, although there is no indication yet whether other courts or federal or state regulators will follow this classification. Both federal and state agencies have instituted enforcement actions against those
violating their interpretation of existing laws. Other U.S. and many state agencies have offered little official guidance and issued no definitive rules regarding the treatment of digital assets. The CFTC has publicly taken the position that certain virtual currencies, which term includes digital assets, are commodities. To the extent that Bitcoin is deemed to fall within the definition of a “commodity interest” under the Commodity Exchange Act (the “CEA”), we may be subject to additional regulation under the CEA and CFTC regulations.
As blockchain technologies and digital assets business activities grow in popularity and market size, and as new digital assets businesses and technologies emerge and proliferate, foreign, federal, state, and local regulators revisit and update their laws and policies, and can be expected to continue to do so in the future. Changes in this regulatory environment, including changing interpretations and the implementation of new or varying regulatory requirements by the government, may significantly affect or change the manner in which we currently conduct some aspects of our business.
States may require licenses that apply to blockchain technologies and digital assets.
In the case of virtual currencies, state regulators such as the NYSDFS have created regulatory frameworks. For example, in July 2014, the NYSDFS proposed the first U.S. regulatory framework for licensing participants in virtual currency business activity. The regulations, known as the “BitLicense”, are intended to focus on consumer protection. The NYSDFS issued its final BitLicense regulatory framework in June 2015. The BitLicense regulates the conduct of businesses that are involved in virtual currencies in New York or with New York customers and prohibits any person or entity involved in such activity from conducting such activities without a license. SoFi Digital Assets, LLC currently holds a BitLicense.
Other states may adopt similar statutes and regulations which will require us to obtain a license to conduct digital asset activities. In July 2020, Louisiana adopted the Virtual Currency Business Act, which will require operators of virtual currency businesses to obtain a virtual currency license in order to conduct business in Louisiana, in accordance with a proposed rule, which is expected to be issued as a final rule by the Louisiana Office of Financial Institutions in early 2021. Other states, such as Texas, have published guidance on how their existing regulatory regimes governing money transmitters apply to virtual currencies. Some states, such as New Hampshire, North Carolina and Washington, have amended their state’s statutes to include virtual currencies into existing licensing regimes, while others have interpreted their existing statutes as requiring a money transmitter license to conduct certain virtual currency business activities. SoFi Digital Assets, LLC is licensed as a money transmitter or the equivalent in a majority of states and the District of Columbia.
It is likely that, as blockchain technologies and the use of virtual currencies continues to grow, additional states will take steps to monitor the developing industry and perhaps require us to obtain additional licenses in connection with our virtual currency activity.
Failure to comply with anti-money laundering, economic and trade sanctions regulations, and similar laws could subject us to penalties and other adverse consequences.
Various laws and regulations in the United States and abroad, such as the Bank Secrecy Act, the Dodd-Frank Act, the USA PATRIOT Act, and the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act, impose certain anti-money laundering requirements on companies that are financial institutions or that provide financial products and services. Under these laws and regulations, financial institutions are broadly defined to include money services businesses such as money transmitters. In 2013, FinCEN issued guidance regarding the applicability of the Bank Secrecy Act to administrators and exchangers of convertible virtual currency, clarifying that they are money service businesses, and more specifically, money transmitters. The Bank Secrecy Act requires money services businesses (“MSBs”) to develop and implement risk-based anti-money laundering programs, report large cash transactions and suspicious activity, and maintain transaction records, among other requirements. State regulators may impose similar requirements on licensed money transmitters. In addition, our contracts with financial institution partners and other third parties may contractually require us to maintain an anti-money laundering program. Our subsidiary, SoFi Digital Assets, LLC, is registered with FinCEN as an MSB. Registration as an MSB subjects us to the regulatory and supervisory jurisdiction of FinCEN and the IRS, the anti-money laundering provisions of the BSA and its implementing regulations applicable to MSBs.
We are also subject to economic and trade sanctions programs administered by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, which prohibit or restrict transactions to or from or dealings with specified countries, their governments, and in certain circumstances, their nationals, and with individuals and entities that are specially-designated nationals of those countries, narcotics traffickers, terrorists or terrorist organizations, and other sanctioned persons and entities.
Our failure to comply with anti-money laundering, economic and trade sanctions regulations, and similar laws could subject us to substantial civil and criminal penalties, or result in the loss or restriction of our MSB or broker-dealer registrations
and state licenses, or liability under our contracts with third parties, which may significantly affect our ability to conduct some aspects of our business. Changes in this regulatory environment, including changing interpretations and the implementation of new or varying regulatory requirements by the government, may significantly affect or change the manner in which we currently conduct some aspects of our business.
We are subject to anti-corruption, anti-bribery and similar laws, and non-compliance with such laws can subject us to significant adverse consequences, including criminal or civil liability and harm our business.
We are subject to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, U.S. domestic bribery laws and other U.S. and foreign anti-corruption laws. Anti-corruption and anti-bribery laws have been enforced aggressively in recent years and are interpreted broadly to generally prohibit companies, their employees and their third-party intermediaries from authorizing, offering or providing, directly or indirectly, improper payments or benefits to recipients in the public sector. These laws also require that we keep accurate books and records and maintain internal controls and compliance procedures designed to prevent any such actions. Although our operations are currently concentrated in the United States, as we increase our international cross-border business and expand operations abroad, we have engaged and may further engage with business partners and third-party intermediaries to market our services and to obtain necessary permits, licenses and other regulatory approvals. In addition, we or our third-party intermediaries may have direct or indirect interactions with officials and employees of government agencies or state-owned or affiliated entities. We can be held liable for the corrupt or other illegal activities of these third-party intermediaries, our employees, representatives, contractors, partners, and agents, even if we do not explicitly authorize such activities. The failure to comply with any such laws could subject us to criminal or civil liability, cause us significant reputational harm and have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We conduct our brokerage and other business operations through subsidiaries and may in the future rely on dividends from our subsidiaries for a substantial amount of our cash flows.
We may in the future depend on dividends, distributions and other payments from our subsidiaries to fund payments on our obligations, including any debt obligations we may incur. Regulatory and other legal restrictions may limit our ability to transfer funds to or from certain subsidiaries, including SoFi Securities. In addition, certain of our subsidiaries are subject to laws and regulations that authorize regulatory bodies to block or reduce the flow of funds to us, or that prohibit such transfers altogether in certain circumstances. These laws and regulations may hinder our ability to access funds that we may need to make payments on our obligations, including any debt obligations we may incur and otherwise conduct our business by, among other things, reducing our liquidity in the form of corporate cash. In addition to negatively affecting our business, a significant decrease in our liquidity could also reduce investor confidence in us. Certain rules and regulations of the SEC and FINRA may limit the extent to which our broker-dealer subsidiaries may distribute capital to us. For example, under FINRA rules applicable to SoFi Securities, a dividend in excess of 10% of a member firm’s excess net capital may not be paid without FINRA’s prior written approval. Compliance with these rules may impede our ability to receive dividends, distributions and other payments from SoFi Securities.
We have in the past, continue to be, and may in the future be subject to inquiries, exams, pending investigations, or enforcement matters.
The financial services industry is subject to extensive regulation under federal, state, and applicable international laws. From time to time, we have been threatened with or named as a defendant in lawsuits, arbitrations and administrative claims involving securities, consumer financial services and other matters. We are also subject to periodic regulatory examinations and inspections. Compliance and trading problems or other deficiencies or weaknesses that are reported to regulators, such as the SEC, FINRA, the CFPB, or state regulators, by dissatisfied customers or others, or that are identified by regulators themselves, are investigated by such regulators, and may, if pursued, result in formal claims being filed against us by customers or disciplinary action being taken against us or our employees by regulators or enforcement agencies. For example, the CFPB has issued a civil investigative demand, or CID, to Galileo, the stated purpose of which is to determine whether Galileo violated any consumer financial laws in connection with an outage that caused difficulty for consumers to access funds in their accounts and to determine whether further CFPB action is necessary. We intend to cooperate with the CFPB in this investigation and impacted consumers were already provided with redress. See Part II, Item 1 “Legal Proceedings”. To resolve issues raised in examinations or other governmental actions, we may be required to take various corrective actions, including changing certain business practices, making refunds or taking other actions that could be financially or competitively detrimental to us. We expect to continue to incur costs to comply with governmental regulations. Any such claims or disciplinary actions that are decided against us could have a material impact on our financial results.
Recent statements by lawmakers, regulators and other public officials have signaled an increased focus on new or additional regulations that could impact our business and require us to make significant changes to our business model and practices, and could result in significant costs to our business.
Various lawmakers, regulators and other public officials have recently made statements about our business and that of other broker-dealers and signaled an increased focus on new or additional laws or regulations that, if acted upon, could impact our business. Over three days in the spring of 2021, the Committee on Financial Services of the U.S. House of Representatives held hearings on the events surrounding the January 2021 market volatility and disruptions surrounding GameStop and other “meme” stocks at which various members of Congress expressed their concerns about various market practices, including payment for order flow (“PFOF”) and options trading. Gary Gensler, who became chair of the SEC in April 2021, was one of the witnesses at the third hearing, held on May 6, 2021, and in his testimony he indicated that he had instructed the staff of the SEC to study, and in some cases make rulemaking recommendations to the SEC regarding, a variety of market issues and practices, including PFOF, so-called gamification, and whether broker-dealers are adequately disclosing their policies and procedures around potential trading restrictions; whether margin requirements and other payment requirements are sufficient; and whether broker-dealers have appropriate tools to manage their liquidity and risk. Chair Gensler also discussed the use of mobile app features such as rewards, bonuses, push notifications and other prompts. Chair Gensler suggested that such prompts could promote behavior that is not in the interest of the customer, such as excessive trading. Chair Gensler also advised that he had directed the SEC staff to consider whether expanded enforcement mechanisms are necessary. Additionally, on June 9, 2021, Chair Gensler remarked at a public conference that he had instructed the SEC staff to make recommendations for the SEC’s consideration on best execution, Regulation National Market System, PFOF (both on-exchange and off-exchange), minimum pricing increments and the National Best Bid and Offer. The regulatory agenda published by the SEC on June 11, 2021, also identified that the SEC would be considering proposing rules in the next year to modernize equity market structure, including possible new rules on PFOF, best execution (amendments to Rule 605), market concentration and certain other practices. The agenda also announced that the SEC might be, at a pre-rule stage, seeking public comments later this year on potential rules related to gamification, behavioral prompts, predictive analytics and differential marketing.
In addition, on March 18, 2021, FINRA issued a regulatory notice reminding member firms of their obligations with respect to maintaining margin requirements, customer order handling and effectively managing liquidity, with a particular focus on best execution practices and the need for member firms to make “meaningful disclosures” to inform customers of a firm’s order handling procedures during extreme market conditions. Further, at a public conference on May 19, 2021, FINRA indicated an intention to solicit public feedback, such as through notices or surveys, regarding so-called gamification in order to determine whether to adopt additional guidance or additional rules in that regard. Also, on June 23, 2021, FINRA issued a regulatory notice reminding member firms of the requirement that customer order flow be directed to markets providing the “most beneficial terms for their customers” and indicated that member firms may not negotiate the terms of order routing arrangements in a manner that reduces price improvement opportunities that would otherwise be available to those customers in the absence of PFOF. The impact that this notice may have on the ability of market participants to enter into PFOF arrangements, if any, has not been determined.
To the extent that the SEC, FINRA or other regulatory authorities or legislative bodies adopt additional regulations or legislation in respect of any of these areas or relating to any other aspect of our business, we could face a heightened risk of potential regulatory violations and could be required to make significant changes to our business model and practices, which changes may not be successful. Any of these outcomes could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. For more information about the potential impact of legal and regulatory changes, see “—We are subject to extensive, complex and evolving laws and regulations, which are interpreted and enforced by various federal, state, and local government authorities”.
We entered into an agreement to acquire a national bank, which if successful would subject us to comprehensive regulation and supervision under applicable banking laws.
If we acquire control of a bank or a bank holding company, we would become subject to regulation and supervision by the Federal Reserve, and the bank would be subject to regulation and supervision by the OCC and the FDIC. The bank regulatory regime could affect many aspects of our operations, including maintenance of adequate capital and liquidity levels and our overall financial condition, permissible types, amounts and terms of extensions of credit and investments, board and management oversight, rate of growth, enterprise-wide risk management practices, compliance obligations, permissible nonbanking activities, and restrictions on dividend payments and stock buy-backs. If we acquire control of a bank, then certain changes in ownership or control of us would require prior approval of applicable banking regulators. The OCC possesses the power to issue cease and desist orders to prevent or remedy unsafe or unsound practices or violations of law by banks subject to
their regulation, and the Federal Reserve possesses similar powers with respect to bank holding companies. These and other restrictions would limit the manner in which we may conduct business and obtain financing.
In general, the bank supervisory framework is intended to protect insured depositors and the safety, soundness and stability of the U.S. financial system and not shareholders in depository institutions or their holding companies. Our efforts to comply with the bank regulatory framework are likely to require substantial time, monetary and human resource commitments, and these regulatory requirements may cause us to forego other growth or potentially profitable opportunities. If any new regulations or interpretations of existing regulations to which we are subject impose requirements on us that are impractical or that we cannot satisfy, our financial performance, and our stock price, may be adversely affected.
Regulations relating to privacy, information security, and data protection could increase our costs, affect or limit how we collect and use personal information, and adversely affect our business opportunities.
We are subject to various privacy, information security and data protection laws, including requirements concerning security breach notification, and we could be negatively impacted by them. For example, we are subject to the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (“GLBA”) and implementing regulations and guidance. Among other things, the GLBA (i) imposes certain limitations on the ability to share consumers’ nonpublic personal information with nonaffiliated third parties and (ii) requires certain disclosures to consumers about their information collection, sharing and security practices and their right to “opt out” of the institution’s disclosure of their personal financial information to nonaffiliated third parties (with certain exceptions). The GLBA and other state laws also require that we implement and maintain certain security measures, policies and procedures to protect personal information.
Furthermore, legislators and/or regulators are increasingly adopting new and/or amending existing privacy, information security and data protection laws that potentially could have a significant impact on our current and planned privacy, data protection and information security-related practices; our policies and practices related to the collection, use, sharing, retention and safeguarding of consumer and/or employee information; and some of our current or planned business activities. New requirements, originating from new or amended laws, could also increase our costs of compliance and business operations and could reduce income from certain business initiatives.
Compliance with current or future privacy, information security and data protection laws (including those regarding security breach notification) affecting customer and/or employee data to which we are subject could result in higher compliance and technology costs and could restrict our ability to provide certain products and services (such as products or services that involve sharing information with third parties or storing sensitive credit card information), which could materially and adversely affect our profitability. Additionally, there is always a danger that regulators can attempt to assert authority over our business in the area of privacy, information security and data protection. In addition, if our vendors and/or service providers are or become subject to laws and regulations in the jurisdictions that have enacted more stringent and expansive legislation applicable to privacy, information and/or data protection, the costs that these vendors and service providers must incur in becoming compliant may be passed along to us, resulting in increasing costs on our business.
Privacy requirements, including notice and opt-out requirements, under the GLBA and the FCRA are enforced by the Federal Trade Commission and by the CFPB through UDAAP and are a standard component of CFPB examinations. State entities also may initiate actions for alleged violations of privacy or security requirements under state law. Our failure to comply with privacy, information security and data protection laws could result in potentially significant regulatory investigations and government actions, litigation, fines or sanctions, consumer or merchant actions and damage to our reputation and brand, all of which could have a material adverse effect on our business.
Should we undertake an international expansion of our business, particularly if we commence doing business in one or more countries of the European Union, we will be required to comply with stringent privacy and data protection laws. Within the European Union, legislators have adopted the General Data Protection Regulation (the “GDPR”), which became effective in May 2018. Should we commence doing business in Europe, the GDPR will impose additional obligations and risk upon our business, which may increase substantially the penalties to which we could be subject in the event of any non-compliance. We may incur substantial expense in complying with obligations imposed by the GDPR and we may be required to make significant changes in our business operations, all of which may adversely affect our revenues and our business overall. Further, following the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union on January 31, 2020, if we do business in the United Kingdom, we will have to comply with the GDPR and separately the GDPR as implemented in the United Kingdom, each regime having the ability to fine up to the greater of €20 million/£17 million or 4% of global turnover. The relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union in relation to certain aspects of data protection law remains unclear,
including how data transfers between European Union member states and the United Kingdom will be treated. These changes may lead to additional compliance costs and could increase our overall risk.
We may in the future be subject to federal or state regulatory inquiries regarding our business.
From time to time, in the normal course of business, we may receive or be subject to, inquiries or investigations by state and federal regulatory or enforcement agencies and bodies, such as the CFPB, state attorneys general, state financial regulatory agencies, other state or federal agencies, and SROs like FINRA. We also may receive inquiries from state regulatory agencies regarding requirements to obtain licenses from or register with those states, including in states where we have determined that we are not required to obtain such a license or be registered with the state. Any such inquiries or investigations could involve substantial time and expense to analyze and respond to, could divert management’s attention and other resources from running our business, and could lead to public enforcement actions or lawsuits and fines, penalties, injunctive relief, and the need to obtain additional licenses that we do not currently possess. Our involvement in any such matters, whether tangential or otherwise and even if the matters are ultimately determined in our favor, could also cause significant harm to our reputation, lead to additional investigations and enforcement actions from other agencies or litigants, and further divert management attention and resources from the operation of our business. As a result, the outcome of legal and regulatory actions arising out of any state or federal inquiries we receive could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations. See Part II, Item 1 “Legal Proceedings”.
It may be difficult and costly to protect our intellectual property rights, and we may not be able to ensure their protection.
Our ability to lend to our members depends, in part, upon our proprietary technology. We may be unable to protect our proprietary technology effectively, which would allow competitors to duplicate our business processes and know-how, and adversely affect our ability to compete with them. A third party may attempt to reverse engineer or otherwise obtain and use our proprietary technology without our consent. The pursuit of a claim against a third party for infringement of our intellectual property could be costly, and there can be no guarantee that any such efforts would be successful.
In addition, our platform may infringe upon claims of third-party intellectual property, and we may face intellectual property challenges from such other parties. We may not be successful in defending against any such challenges or in obtaining licenses to avoid or resolve any intellectual property disputes. The costs of defending any such claims or litigation could be significant and, if we are unsuccessful, could result in a requirement that we pay significant damages or licensing fees, which would negatively impact our financial performance. Furthermore, our technology may become obsolete, and there is no guarantee that we will be able to successfully develop, obtain or use new technologies to adapt our platform to stay competitive in the future. If we cannot protect our proprietary technology from intellectual property challenges, or if our platform becomes obsolete, our ability to maintain the our platform could be adversely affected.
Some aspects of our platform include open source software, and any failure to comply with the terms of one or more of these open source licenses could negatively affect our business.
We incorporate open source software into our proprietary platform and into other processes supporting our business. Such open source software may include software covered by licenses like the GNU General Public License and the Apache License or other open source licenses. The terms of various open source licenses have not been interpreted by U.S. courts, and there is a risk that such licenses could be construed in a manner that limits our use of the software, inhibits certain aspects of our platform and negatively affects our business operations.
Some open source licenses contain requirements that we make available source code for modifications or derivative works we create based upon the type of open source software we use. If portions of our proprietary platform are determined to be subject to an open source license, or if the license terms for the open source software that we incorporate change, we could be required to publicly release the affected portions of our source code, re-engineer all or a portion of our platform or change our business activities. In addition to risks related to license requirements, the use of open source software can lead to greater risks than the use of third-party commercial software, as open source licensors generally do not provide warranties or controls on the origin of the software. Many of the risks associated with the use of open source software cannot be eliminated and could adversely affect our business.
We rely on third parties to perform certain key functions, and their failure to perform those functions could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We rely on certain third-party computer systems or third-party service providers, including cloud technology providers such as Amazon Web Services, internet service providers, payment services providers, market and third-party data providers,
regulatory services providers, clearing systems, market makers, exchange systems, banking systems, co-location facilities, communications facilities and other facilities to run our platform, facilitate trades by our customers and support or carry out certain regulatory obligations. In addition, external content providers provide us with financial information, market news, charts, option and stock quotes, digital assets quotes, research reports and other fundamental data that we provide to our customers. These providers are susceptible to operational, technological and security vulnerabilities, including security breaches, which may impact our business, and our ability to monitor our third-party service providers’ data security is limited. In addition, these third-party service providers may rely on subcontractors to provide services to us that face similar risks. Any interruption in these third-party services, or deterioration in the quality of their service or performance, could be disruptive to our business.
Any failure or security breaches by or of our third-party service providers or their subcontractors that result in an interruption in service, unauthorized access, misuse, loss or destruction of data or other similar occurrences could interrupt our business, cause us to incur losses, result in decreased customer satisfaction and increase customer attrition, subject us to customer complaints, significant fines, litigation, disputes, claims, regulatory investigations or other inquiries and harm our reputation. Through contractual provisions and third-party risk management processes, we take steps to require that our providers, and their subcontractors, protect our data and information, including personal data. However, due to the size and complexity of our technology platform and services, the amount of data that we store and the number of customers, employees and third-party service providers with access to personal data, we, our third-party service providers and their subcontractors are potentially vulnerable to a variety of intentional and inadvertent cybersecurity breaches and other security-related incidents and threats, which could result in a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operation. Any contractual protections we may have from our third-party service providers may not be sufficient to adequately protect us against such consequences, and we may be unable to enforce any such contractual protections.
In addition, there is no assurance that our third-party service providers or their subcontractors will be able to continue to provide these services to meet our current needs in an efficient, cost-effective manner or that they will be able to adequately expand their services to meet our needs in the future. An interruption in or the cessation of service by our third-party service providers or their subcontractors, coupled with our possible inability to make alternative arrangements in a smooth, cost-effective and timely manner, could have adverse effects on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Further, if there were deficiencies in the oversight and control of our third-party relationships, and if our regulators held us responsible for those deficiencies, it could have an adverse effect on our business, reputation and results of operations.
Litigation, regulatory actions and compliance issues could subject us to significant fines, penalties, judgments, remediation costs, negative publicity, changes to our business model, and requirements resulting in increased expenses.
Our business is subject to increased risks of litigation and regulatory actions as a result of a number of factors and from various sources, including as a result of the highly regulated nature of the financial services industry and the focus of state and federal enforcement agencies on the financial services industry.
From time to time, we are also involved in, or the subject of, reviews, requests for information, investigations and proceedings (both formal and informal) by state and federal governmental agencies and SROs, regarding our business activities and our qualifications to conduct our business in certain jurisdictions, which could subject us to significant fines, penalties, obligations to change our business practices and other requirements resulting in increased expenses and diminished earnings. Our involvement in any such matter also could cause significant harm to our reputation and divert management attention from the operation of our business, even if the matters are ultimately determined in our favor. Moreover, any settlement, or any consent order or adverse judgment in connection with any formal or informal proceeding or investigation by a government agency, may prompt litigation or additional investigations or proceedings as other litigants or other government agencies begin independent reviews of the same activities. See “Regulatory, Tax and Other Legal Risks — Our Lending segment is highly regulated, and if we fail to comply with federal and state consumer protection laws, rules, regulations and guidance, our business could be adversely affected” for a discussion of the FTC Consent Order and “Regulatory, Tax and Other Legal Risks — We are subject to state licensing and operational requirements that result in substantial compliance costs, and our business would be adversely affected if our licenses are impaired”.
In addition, a number of participants in the financial services industry have been the subject of: putative class action lawsuits; state attorney general actions and other state regulatory actions; federal regulatory enforcement actions, including actions relating to alleged unfair, deceptive or abusive acts or practices; violations of state licensing and lending laws, including state usury laws; actions alleging discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender or other prohibited bases; and allegations of noncompliance with various state and federal laws and regulations relating to originating and servicing consumer finance
loans. For example, we are defendants in a putative class action in which it is alleged that we engaged in unlawful lending discrimination through policies and practices by making applicants who are conditional permanent residents or DACA holders ineligible for loans or eligible only with a co-signer who is United States citizen or lawful permanent resident. In addition, Galileo is a defendant in a putative class action in which various claims arising from an intermittent disruption in service experienced by certain holders of deposit accounts at one of Galileo’s clients, which prevented individuals from accessing or using account funds for a period of time. The CFPB is also conducting an investigation into this matter. See Part II, Item 1. “Legal Proceedings” for further information about this action.
The current regulatory environment, increased regulatory compliance efforts and enhanced regulatory enforcement have resulted in significant operational and compliance costs and may prevent us from providing certain products and services. There is no assurance that these regulatory matters or other factors will not, in the future, affect how we conduct our business and, in turn, have a material adverse effect on our business. In particular, legal proceedings brought under state consumer protection statutes or under several of the various federal consumer financial services statutes may result in a separate fine for each violation of the statute, which, particularly in the case of class action lawsuits, could result in damages substantially in excess of the amounts we earned from the underlying activities.
In addition, from time to time, through our operational and compliance controls, we identify compliance and other issues that require us to make operational changes and, depending on the nature of the issue, result in financial remediation to impacted members. These self-identified issues and voluntary remediation payments could be significant, depending on the issue and the number of members impacted, and also could generate litigation or regulatory investigations that subject us to additional risk. See Part II, Item 1 “Legal Proceedings”.
Changes in tax law and differences in interpretation of tax laws and regulations may adversely impact our financial statements.
We operate in multiple jurisdictions and are subject to tax laws and regulations of the U.S. federal, state and local and non-U.S. governments. U.S. federal, state and local and non-U.S. tax laws and regulations are complex and subject to varying interpretations. U.S. federal, state and local and non-U.S. tax authorities may interpret tax laws and regulations differently than we do and challenge tax positions that we have taken. This may result in differences in the treatment of revenues, deductions, credits and/or differences in the timing of these items. The differences in treatment may result in payment of additional taxes, interest or penalties that could have an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations. Further, future changes to U.S. federal, state and local and non-U.S. tax laws and regulations could increase our tax obligations in jurisdictions where we do business or require us to change the manner in which we conduct some aspects of our business.
We will be adversely affected if we are, or any of our subsidiaries is, determined to have been subject to registration as an investment company under the Investment Company Act.
We are currently not deemed an “investment company” subject to regulation under the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended (the “Investment Company Act”). No opinion or no-action position has been requested of the SEC on our status as an Investment Company. There is no guarantee we will continue to be exempt from registration under the Investment Company Act and were we to be deemed to be an investment company under the Investment Company Act, and thus subject to regulation under the Investment Company Act, the increased reporting and operating requirements could have an adverse impact on our business, operating results, financial condition and prospects.
In addition, if the SEC or a court of competent jurisdiction were to find that we are in violation of the Investment Company Act for having failed to register as an investment company thereunder, possible consequences include, but are not limited to, the following: (i) the SEC could apply to a district court to enjoin the violation; (ii) we could be sued by investors in us and in our securities for damages caused by the violation; and (iii) any contract to which we are a party that is made in, or whose performance involves a, violation of the Investment Company Act would be unenforceable by any party to the contract unless a court were to find that under the circumstances enforcement would produce a more equitable result than nonenforcement and would not be inconsistent with the purposes of the Investment Company Act. Should we be subjected to any or all of the foregoing, our business would be materially and adversely affected.
Personnel and Business Continuity Risks
We rely on our management team and will require additional key personnel to grow our business, and the loss of key management members or key employees, or an inability to hire key personnel, could harm our business.
We believe our success has depended, and continues to depend, on the efforts and talents of our senior management, who have significant experience in the financial services and technology industries, are responsible for our core competencies and would be difficult to replace. Our future success depends on our continuing ability to attract, develop, motivate and retain highly qualified and skilled employees. Qualified individuals are in high demand, and we may incur significant costs to attract and retain them. In addition, the loss of any of our senior management or key employees could materially adversely affect our ability to execute our business plan and strategy, and we may not be able to find adequate replacements on a timely basis, or at all. Our executive officers and other employees are at-will employees, which means they may terminate their employment relationship with us at any time, and their knowledge of our business and industry would be extremely difficult to replace. We cannot ensure that we will be able to retain the services of any members of our senior management or other key employees. If we do not succeed in attracting well-qualified employees or retaining and motivating existing employees, our business could be materially and adversely affected.
The competitive job market creates a challenge and potential risk as we strive to attract and retain a highly skilled workforce.
Competition for our employees, including highly skilled technology and product professionals, is extremely intense reflecting a tight labor market. This can present a risk as we compete for experienced candidates, especially if the competition is able to offer more attractive financial terms of employment. This risk extends to our current employee population. We also invest significant time and expense in engaging and developing our employees, which also increases their value to other companies that may seek to recruit them. Turnover can result in significant replacement costs and lost productivity.
In addition, recent U.S. immigration policy has made it more difficult for qualified foreign nationals to obtain or maintain work visas under the H-1B classification. These H-1B visa limitations make it more difficult and/or more expensive for us to hire the skilled professionals we need to execute our growth strategy, especially engineering, data analytics and risk management personnel, and may adversely impact our business.
Due to our primarily remote workforce, we may face increased business continuity and cyber risks that could significantly harm our business and operations.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused us to modify our business practices by migrating to a primarily remote workforce where our employees are accessing our servers remotely through home or other networks to perform their job responsibilities. While we are planning for a return to in-person operations, these plans could be delayed due to continued developments with the COVID-19 pandemic and the increased prevalence of additional strains of the virus. While most of our operations can be performed remotely and are operating effectively at present, there is no guarantee that this will continue or that we will continue to be as effective while working remotely because our team is dispersed, many employees may have additional personal needs to attend to (such as looking after children as a result of school closures or a family member who becomes sick), and employees may become sick themselves and be unable to work. As conditions improve and restrictions are lifted, similar uncertainties exist with the return to work process.
Additionally, while we put in place additional safeguards to protect data security and privacy, a remote workforce places additional pressure on our user infrastructure and third parties that are not easily mitigated. These risks include home internet availability affecting work continuity and efficiency, and additional dependencies on third-party communication tools, such as instant messaging and online meeting platforms.
Our business is subject to the risks of natural disasters, power outages, telecommunications failures and similar events, including COVID-19 and additional public health crises, and to interruption by man-made problems such as terrorism, cyberattack, and other actions, which may impact the demand for our products or our members’ ability to repay their loans.
Events beyond our control may damage our ability to maintain our platform and provide services to our members. Such events include, but are not limited to, hurricanes, earthquakes, fires, floods and other natural disasters, public health crises, such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic or other infectious diseases, power outages, telecommunications failures and similar events. See “ —COVID-19 Pandemic Risks” for further discussion of risks related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite any precautions we may take, system interruptions and delays could occur if there is a natural disaster, if a third-party provider closes a facility we use without adequate notice for financial or other reasons, or if there are other unanticipated problems at our
leased facilities. Because we rely heavily on our servers, computer and communications systems and the Internet to conduct our business and provide high-quality service to our members, disruptions could harm our ability to effectively run our business. Moreover, our members and customers face similar risks, which could directly or indirectly impact our business. For example, in October 2019, one of Galileo's customers experienced intermittent disruptions in service, which prevented its customers from accessing or using their deposit accounts. Galileo was named as a defendant in a putative class action as a result of the disruption in service its customer experienced, captioned as Richards, et. al v. Chime Financial, Inc., Galileo Financial Technologies and The Bancorp, Inc., Civil Action No. 4:19-cv-6864-HSG (N.D. Cal.), filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in October 2019, and has agreed to a class action settlement to resolve the claims. See Part II, Item 1 “Legal Proceedings” for further information about this matter. We currently use Amazon Web Services (“AWS”) and would be unable to switch instantly to another system in the event of failure to access AWS. This means that an outage of AWS could result in our system being unavailable for a significant period of time. Terrorism, cyberattacks and other criminal, tortious or unintentional actions could also give rise to significant disruptions to our operations. Our business interruption insurance may not be sufficient to compensate us for losses that may result from interruptions in our service as a result of system failures or other disruptions. Comparable natural and other risks may reduce demand for our products or cause our members to suffer significant losses and/or incur significant disruption in their respective operations, which may affect their ability to satisfy their obligations towards us. All of the foregoing could materially and adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Employee misconduct, which can be difficult to detect and deter, could harm our reputation and subject us to significant legal liability.
We operate in an industry in which integrity and the confidence of our members is of critical importance. We are subject to risks of errors and misconduct by our employees that could adversely affect our business, including:
•engaging in misrepresentation or fraudulent activities when marketing or performing online brokerage and other services to our members;
•improperly using or disclosing confidential information of our members or other parties;
•concealing unauthorized or unsuccessful activities; or
•otherwise not complying with applicable laws and regulations or our internal policies or procedures.
There have been numerous highly-publicized cases of fraud and other misconduct by financial services industry employees. The precautions that we take to detect and deter employee misconduct might not be effective. If any of our employees engage in illegal, improper, or suspicious activity or other misconduct, we could suffer serious harm to our reputation, financial condition, member relationships, and our ability to attract new members. We also could become subject to regulatory sanctions and significant legal liability, which could cause serious harm to our financial condition, reputation, member relationships and prospects of attracting additional members.
Risk Management and Financial Reporting Risks
If we fail to establish and maintain proper and effective internal control over financial reporting, our ability to produce accurate and timely financial statements could be impaired, investors may lose confidence in our financial reporting and the trading price of our common stock may decline.
Pursuant to Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, following completion of the Business Combination, the report by management on internal control over financial reporting will be on SoFi’s financial reporting and internal controls (as accounting acquirer), and an attestation of the independent registered public accounting firm will also be required. As a private company, SoFi had not previously been required to conduct an internal control evaluation and assessment. The rules governing the standards that must be met for management to assess internal control over financial reporting are complex and require significant documentation, testing and possible remediation. As a public company, beginning with our second annual report on Form 10-K, we will be required, pursuant to Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, to furnish a report by management on, among other things, the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting for future annual reports on Form 10-K to be filed with the SEC. This assessment will need to include disclosure of any material weaknesses identified by our management in our internal control over financial reporting. Our independent registered public accounting firm will also be required to attest to the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting in future annual reports report on Form 10-K to be filed with the SEC. We will be required to disclose changes made in our internal controls and procedures on a quarterly basis. Failure to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act could potentially subject us to sanctions or investigations by the SEC, the applicable stock exchange or other regulatory authorities, which would require additional financial and management resources.
We have begun the process of compiling the system and processing documentation necessary to perform the evaluation needed to comply with Section 404 in the future, but we may not be able to complete our evaluation, testing and any required remediation in a timely fashion.
To comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the requirements of being a reporting company under the Exchange Act and any new or revised accounting rules in the future, as necessary, we are in the process of upgrading SoFi’s legacy information technology systems; implementing additional financial and management controls, reporting systems and procedures; and hiring additional accounting and finance staff. If we are unable to hire the additional accounting and finance staff necessary to comply with these requirements, we may need to retain additional outside consultants. If we or, if required, our independent registered public accounting firm, are unable to conclude that our internal control over financial reporting is effective, investors may lose confidence in its financial reporting, which could negatively impact the price of our securities.
On April 12, 2021, the Acting Director of the Division of Corporation Finance and Acting Chief Accountant of the SEC together issued a statement regarding the accounting and reporting considerations for warrants issued by special purpose acquisition companies entitled “Staff Statement on Accounting and Reporting Considerations for Warrants Issued by Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (“SPACs”)” (the “SEC Statement”). Specifically, the SEC Statement focused on certain settlement terms and provisions related to certain tender offers following a business combination, which terms are similar to those contained in the warrant agreement governing the public warrants and private placement warrants issued initially by SCH. Following the issuance of the SEC statement, on April 22, 2021, SCH concluded that it was appropriate to restate its previously issued audited financial statements as of and for the period ended December 31, 2020, and as part of such process, SCH identified a material weakness in its internal control over financial reporting. As the accounting acquirer in the Business Combination, we inherited this material weakness and the warrants and, because there were no changes to the terms and conditions of the agreement governing these warrants, we determined to classify the 20,125,000 public warrants and 8,000,000 private placement warrants (collectively, “SoFi Technologies warrants”) as derivative liabilities measured at fair value, with changes in fair value each period reported in earnings. Accounting Standards Codification 815, Derivatives and Hedging, provides for the remeasurement of the fair value of such derivatives at each balance sheet date, with a resulting non-cash gain or loss related to the change in the fair value being recognized in earnings in the statement of operations. As a result of the recurring fair value measurement, our consolidated financial statements and results of operations may fluctuate quarterly, based on factors which are outside of our control. Due to the recurring fair value measurement, we expect that we will recognize non-cash gains or losses on the warrants each reporting period and that the amount of such gains or losses could be material.
As a result of the material weakness, the restatement, the change in accounting for the SoFi Technologies warrants, and other matters raised or that may in the future be raised by the SEC, we may face potential litigation or other disputes, which may include, among others, claims invoking the federal and state securities laws, contractual claims or other claims arising from the restatement and material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting and the preparation of our financial statements. As of the date of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, we have no knowledge of any such litigation or dispute. However, we can provide no assurance that such litigation or dispute will not arise in the future. Any such litigation or dispute, whether successful or not, could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.
We cannot assure you that there will not be additional material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting now or in the future. Any failure to maintain internal control over financial reporting could severely inhibit our ability to accurately report our financial condition, results of operations or cash flows. If we are unable to conclude that our internal control over financial reporting is effective, or if our independent registered public accounting firm determines that we have a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting, investors may lose confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports, the market price of our common stock could decline, and we could be subject to sanctions or investigations by Nasdaq, the SEC or other regulatory authorities. Failure to remedy any material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting, or to implement or maintain other effective control systems required of public companies, could also restrict our future access to the capital markets.
Our reported financial results may be adversely affected by changes in accounting principles generally accepted in the United States.
Generally accepted accounting principles in the United States are subject to interpretation by the Financial Accounting Standards Board, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the SEC and various bodies formed to promulgate and interpret appropriate accounting principles. A change in these principles or interpretations could have a significant effect on our reported financial results, and could affect the reporting of transactions completed before the announcement of a change.
Our management has limited experience in operating a public company.
We will incur increased costs as a result of operating as a public company, and our management will devote substantial time to new compliance initiatives. As a public company, we are subject to the reporting requirements of the Exchange Act, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Dodd-Frank Act, as well as rules adopted, and to be adopted, by the SEC and Nasdaq. Our management and other personnel will need to devote a substantial amount of time to these compliance initiatives and may not effectively or efficiently manage our transition into a public company. Moreover, we expect these rules and regulations to substantially increase our legal and financial compliance costs and to make some activities more time-consuming and costly, which will increase our net loss for the foreseeable future. We cannot predict or estimate the amount or timing of additional costs we may incur to respond to these requirements. The impact of these requirements could also make it more difficult for us to attract and retain qualified persons to serve on our board of directors, its board committees or as executive officers.
Our executive officers have limited experience in the management of a publicly traded company. Their limited experience in dealing with the increasingly complex laws pertaining to public companies could be a significant disadvantage in that it is likely that an increasing amount of their time may be devoted to these activities, which will result in less time being devoted to the management and growth of the post-combination company. We may not have adequate personnel with the appropriate level of knowledge, experience and training in the accounting policies, practices or internal control over financial reporting required of public companies. Our management will need to continually assess our staffing and training procedures to improve our internal control over financial reporting. Further, the development, implementation, documentation and assessment of appropriate processes, in addition to the need to remediate any potential deficiencies, will require substantial time and attention from management. The development and implementation of the standards and controls necessary for us to achieve the level of accounting standards required of a public company may require costs greater than expected. It is possible that we will be required to expand our employee base and hire additional employees to support our operations as a public company which will increase its operating costs in future periods. See “Risk Management and Financial Reporting Risks — If we fail to establish and maintain proper and effective internal control over financial reporting, our ability to produce accurate and timely financial statements could be impaired, investors may lose confidence in our financial reporting and the trading price of our common stock may decline”.
As a result of our business combination with a special purpose acquisition company, regulatory obligations may impact us differently than other publicly traded companies.
We became a publicly traded company by completing a transaction with SCH, a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. As a result of this transaction, regulatory obligations have, and may continue, to impact us differently than other publicly traded companies. For instance, the SEC and other regulatory agencies may issue additional guidance or apply further regulatory scrutiny to companies like us that have completed a business combination with a SPAC. Managing this regulatory environment, which has and may continue to evolve, could divert management’s attention from the operation of our business, negatively impact our ability to raise additional capital when needed or have an adverse effect on the price of our common stock.
Our risk management processes and procedures may not be effective.
Our risk management processes and procedures seek to appropriately balance risk and return and mitigate risks. We have established processes and procedures intended to identify, measure, monitor and control the types of risk to which we are subject, including credit risk, deposit risk, market risk, liquidity risk, strategic risk, operational risk, cybersecurity risk, and reputational risk. Credit risk is the risk of loss that arises when a loan obligor fails to meet the terms of a loan repayment obligation, the loan enters default, and if uncured results in financial loss of remaining principal and interest to the investor. Our exposure to credit risk mainly arises from our lending activities. Deposit risk refers to accelerated availability of depositor funds, prior to settlement, risk of ACH returns or merchant settlements, and transactional limits that may be applied to deposit accounts. Market risk is the risk of loss due to changes in external market factors, such as interest rates, asset prices, and foreign exchange rates. Liquidity risk is the risk that financial condition or overall safety and soundness are adversely affected by an inability, or perceived inability, to meet obligations (e.g., current and future cash flow needs) and support business growth. We actively monitor our liquidity position and at the broker-dealer subsidiary level. Strategic risk is the risk from changes in the business environment, ineffective business strategies, improper implementation of decisions or inadequate responsiveness to changes in the business and competitive environment.
Our management is responsible for defining the priorities, initiatives, and resources necessary to execute our strategic plan, the success of which is regularly evaluated by our board of directors. Operational risk is the risk of loss arising from inadequate or failed internal processes, controls, people (e.g., human error or misconduct) or systems (e.g., technology problems), business continuity or external events (e.g., natural disasters), compliance, reputational, regulatory, or legal matters and includes those
risks as they relate directly to us, fraud losses attributed to applications and any associated fines and monetary penalties as a result, transaction processing, or employees, as well as to third parties with whom we contract or otherwise do business. Operational risk is one of the most prevalent forms of risk in our risk profile. We strive to manage operational risk by establishing policies and procedures to accomplish timely and efficient processing, obtaining periodic internal control attestations from management, conducting internal process Risk Control Self-Assessments and audit reviews to evaluate the effectiveness of internal controls.
In order to be effective, among other things, our enterprise risk management capabilities must adapt and align to support any new product or loan features, capability, strategic development, or external change. Cybersecurity risk is the risk of a malicious technological attack intended to impact the confidentiality, availability, or integrity of our systems and data, including, but not limited to, sensitive client data. Our technology and information security teams rely on a layered system of preventive and detective technologies, practices, and policies to detect, mitigate, and neutralize cybersecurity threats. In addition, our information security team and third-party consultants regularly assesses our cybersecurity risks and mitigation efforts. Cyberattacks can also result in financial and reputational risk.
Reputational risk is the risk arising from possible negative perceptions of us, whether true or not, among our current and prospective members, counterparties, employees, and regulators. The potential for either enhancing or damaging our reputation is inherent in almost all aspects of business activity. We manage this risk through our commitment to a set of core values that emphasize and reward high standards of ethical behavior, maintaining a culture of compliance, and by being responsive to member and regulatory requirements.
Risk is inherent in our business, and therefore, despite our efforts to manage risk, there can be no assurance that we will not sustain unexpected losses. We could incur substantial losses and our business operations could be disrupted to the extent our business model, operational processes, control functions, technological capabilities, risk analyses, and business/product knowledge do not adequately identify and manage potential risks associated with our strategic initiatives. There also may be risks that exist, or that develop in the future, that we have not appropriately anticipated, identified or mitigated, including when processes are changed or new products and services are introduced. If our risk management framework does not effectively identify and control our risks, we could suffer unexpected losses or be adversely affected, which could have a material adverse effect on our business.
Incorrect estimates or assumptions by management in connection with the preparation of our consolidated financial statements could adversely affect our reported assets, liabilities, income, revenues or expenses.
The preparation of our consolidated financial statements requires management to make critical accounting estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets, liabilities, income, revenues or expenses during the reporting periods. Incorrect estimates and assumptions by management could adversely affect our reported amounts of assets, liabilities, income, revenues and expenses during the reporting periods. If we make incorrect assumptions or estimates, our reported financial results may be over- or understated, which could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Our forecasts are subject to significant risks, assumptions, estimates and uncertainties. As a result, our forecasted revenues, market share, expenses and profitability may differ materially from our expectations.
We operate in a rapidly changing and competitive industry and our projections will be subject to the risks and assumptions made by management with respect to our industry. Operating results are difficult to forecast because they generally depend on a number of factors, including the competition we face, and our ability to attract and retain members and enterprise partnerships, while generating sustained revenues through the Financial Services Productivity Loop. Additionally, our business may be affected by reductions in consumer borrowing, spending and investing from time to time as a result of a number of factors which may be difficult to predict. This may result in decreased revenue levels, and we may be unable to adopt measures in a timely manner to compensate for any unexpected shortfall in income. This inability could cause our operating results in a given quarter to be higher or lower than expected. These factors make creating accurate forecasts and budgets challenging and, as a result, we may fall materially short of our forecasts and expectations, which could cause our stock price to decline and investors to lose confidence in us.
Information Technology and Data Risks
We depend on third parties for a wide array of services, systems and information technology applications, and a breach or violation of law by one of these third parties could disrupt our business or provide our competitors with an opportunity to enhance their position at our expense.
We depend on third parties for a wide array of financial, technology and insurance services, systems and information technology applications. Third-party vendors are significantly involved in many aspects of our software and systems development, servicing systems, the timely transmission of information across our data communication network, and for other telecommunications, processing, remittance and technology-related services in connection with our servicing or payment services businesses. Certain of our vendor agreements are terminable on short or no notice, and if current vendors were to stop providing services to us on acceptable terms, we may be unable to procure alternatives from other vendors in a timely and efficient manner and on acceptable terms, or at all. If a service provider fails to provide the services required or expected, or fails to meet applicable contractual or regulatory requirements such as service levels or compliance with applicable laws, the failure could negatively impact our business. Such a failure could also adversely affect the perception of the reliability of our networks and services and the quality of our brand, which could materially adversely affect our business and results of operations.
Cyberattacks and other security breaches could have an adverse effect on our business, harm our reputation and expose us to liability.
In the normal course of business, we collect, process and retain sensitive and confidential information regarding our members and prospective members. We also have arrangements in place with certain third-party service providers that require us to share consumer information. Although we devote significant resources and management focus to ensuring the integrity of our systems through information security and business continuity programs, our facilities and systems, and those of third-party service providers, are vulnerable to external or internal security breaches, acts of vandalism, computer viruses, misplaced or lost data, programming or human errors, and other similar events. We and third-party service providers have experienced such instances in the past and expect to continue to experience them in the future. We also face security threats from malicious third parties that could obtain unauthorized access to our systems and networks, which threats we anticipate will continue to grow in scope and complexity over time. These events could interrupt our business or operations, result in significant legal and financial exposure, supervisory liability, damage to our reputation and a loss of confidence in the security of our systems, products and services. Although the impact to date from these events has not had a material adverse effect on us, no assurance is given that this will be the case in the future.
Information security risks in the financial services industry have increased recently, in part because of new technologies, the use of the Internet and telecommunications technologies (including mobile devices) to conduct financial and other business transactions and the increased sophistication and activities of organized criminals, perpetrators of fraud, hackers, terrorists and others. In addition to cyberattacks and other security breaches involving the theft of sensitive and confidential information, hackers recently have engaged in attacks that are designed to disrupt key business services, such as consumer-facing websites. We may not be able to anticipate or implement effective preventive measures against all security breaches of these types, especially because the techniques used change frequently and because attacks can originate from a wide variety of sources. We employ detection and response mechanisms designed to contain and mitigate security incidents. Nonetheless, early detection efforts may be thwarted by sophisticated attacks and malware designed to avoid detection. We also may fail to detect the existence of a security breach related to the information of our members.
The access by unauthorized persons to, or the improper disclosure by us of, confidential information regarding our members or our proprietary information, software, methodologies and business secrets could interrupt our business or operations, result in significant legal and financial exposure, supervisory liability, damage to our reputation or a loss of confidence in the security of our systems, products and services, all of which could have a material adverse impact on our business. In addition, there recently have been a number of well-publicized attacks or breaches affecting companies in the financial services industry that have heightened concern by consumers, which could also intensify regulatory focus, cause users to lose trust in the security of the industry in general and result in reduced use of our services and increased costs, all of which could also have a material adverse effect on our business.
The collection, processing, use, storage, sharing and transmission of personal data could give rise to liabilities as a result of federal, state and international laws and regulations, as well as our failure to adhere to the privacy and data security practices that we articulate to our members.
We collect, process, store, use, share and/or transmit a large volume of personally identifiable information (“PII”) and other sensitive data from current, past and prospective members. There are federal, state, and foreign laws regarding privacy, data security and the collection, use, storage, protection, sharing and/or transmission of PII and sensitive data. Additionally, many states continue to enact legislation on matters of privacy, information security, cybersecurity, data breach and data breach notification requirements. For example, as of January 1, 2020, the CCPA grants additional consumer rights with respect to data privacy in California. The CCPA, among other things, entitles California residents to know how their personal information is being collected and shared, to access or request the deletion of their personal information and to opt out of the sharing of their personal information. The CCPA is subject to further amendments pending certain proposed regulations that are being reviewed and revised by the California Attorney General. While personal information that we process is exempt from the GLBA, the CCPA regulates other personal information that we collect and process in connection with the business. We cannot predict the impact of the CCPA on our business, operations or financial condition, but it could require us to modify certain processes or procedures, which could result in additional costs and liability. Additionally, our broker-dealer and investment adviser are subject to SEC Regulation S-P, which requires that these businesses maintain policies and procedures addressing the protection of customer information and records. This includes protecting against any anticipated threats or hazards to the security or integrity of customer records and information and against unauthorized access to or use of customer records or information. Regulation S-P also requires these businesses to provide initial and annual privacy notices to customers describing information sharing policies and informing customers of their rights.
Additionally, a California ballot initiative, the California Privacy Rights Act (the “CPRA”) was passed in November 2020. Effective starting on January 1, 2023, the CPRA imposes additional obligations on companies covered by the legislation and will significantly modify the CCPA, including by expanding consumers’ rights with respect to certain sensitive personal information. The CPRA also creates a new state agency that will be vested with authority to implement and enforce the CCPA and the CPRA. The effects of the CCPA and the CPRA are potentially significant and may require us to modify our data collection or processing practices and policies and to incur substantial costs and expenses in an effort to comply and increase our potential exposure to regulatory enforcement and/or litigation.
We expect more states to enact legislation similar to the CCPA, which provides consumers with new privacy rights and increases the privacy and security obligations of entities handling certain personal information of such consumers. The CCPA has prompted a number of proposals for new federal and state-level privacy legislation. Such proposed legislation, if enacted, may add additional complexity, variation in requirements, restrictions and potential legal risk, require additional investment of resources in compliance programs, impact strategies and the availability of previously useful data and could result in increased compliance costs and/or changes in business practices and policies.
Any violations of these laws and regulations may require us to change our business practices or operational structure, including limiting our activities in certain states and/or jurisdictions, address legal claims, and sustain monetary penalties, reputational damage and/or other harms to our business.
Furthermore, our online privacy policy and website make certain statements regarding our privacy, information security, and data security practices with regard to information collected from our members. Failure to adhere to such practices may result in regulatory scrutiny and investigation (including the potential for fines and monetary penalties), complaints by affected members, reputational damage and other harm to our business. If either we, or the third-party service providers with which we share member data, are unable to address privacy concerns, even if unfounded, or to comply with applicable laws and regulations, it could result in additional costs and liability, damage our reputation, and harm our business.
Our ability to collect payments on loans and maintain accurate accounts may be adversely affected by computer malware, social engineering, phishing, physical or electronic break-ins, technical errors and similar disruptions.
The automated nature of our platform may make it an attractive target for hacking and potentially vulnerable to computer viruses, physical or electronic break-ins and similar disruptions. It is possible that we may not be able to anticipate or to implement effective preventive measures against all security breaches of these types, in which case there would be an increased risk of fraud or identity theft, and we may experience losses on, or delays in the collection of amounts owed on, a fraudulently induced loan. Security breaches could occur from outside our company, and also from the actions of persons inside our company who may have authorized or unauthorized access to our technology systems. In addition, the software that we have developed to use in our daily operations is highly complex and may contain undetected technical errors that could cause our computer systems to fail. Because each loan that we make involves, in part, our proprietary automated underwriting process,
any failure of our computer systems involving our automated underwriting process and any technical or other errors contained in the software pertaining to our automated underwriting process could compromise our ability to accurately evaluate potential members, which would negatively impact our results of operations. Furthermore, any failure of our computer systems could cause an interruption in operations and result in disruptions in, or reductions in the amount of, collections from the loans we make to our members.
Additionally, if hackers were able to access our secure files, they might be able to gain access to the personal information of our members. If we are unable to prevent such activity, we may be subject to significant liability, negative publicity and a material loss of members, all of which may negatively affect our business.
Disruptions in the operation of our computer systems and third-party data centers could have an adverse effect on our business.
Our ability to deliver products and services to our members and partners, and otherwise operate our business and comply with applicable laws, depends on the efficient and uninterrupted operation of our computer systems and third-party data centers, as well as third-party service providers. Our computer systems and third-party providers may encounter service interruptions at any time due to system or software failure, natural disasters, severe weather conditions, health pandemics, terrorist attacks, cyberattacks or other events. Any such events could have a negative effect on our business and technology infrastructure (including our computer network systems), which could lead to member dissatisfaction or long-term disruption of our operations.
Additionally, our reliance on third-party providers may mean that we will not be able to resolve operational problems internally or on a timely basis, as our operations will depend upon such third-party service providers communicating appropriately and responding swiftly to their own service disruptions through industry standard best practices in business continuity and/or disaster recovery. As a last resort, we may rely on our ability to replace a third-party service provider if it experiences difficulties that interrupt operations for a prolonged period of time or if an essential third-party service terminates. If these service arrangements are terminated for any reason without an immediately available substitute arrangement, our operations may be severely interrupted or delayed. If such interruption or delay were to continue for a substantial period of time, our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.
The implementation of technology changes and upgrades to maintain current and integrate new systems may cause service interruptions, transaction processing errors or system conversion delays and may cause us to fail to comply with applicable laws, all of which could have a material adverse effect on our business. We expect that new technologies and business processes applicable to the financial services industry will continue to emerge and that these new technologies and business processes may be better than those we currently use. There is no assurance that we will be able to successfully adopt new technology as critical systems and applications become obsolete and better ones become available. A failure to maintain and/or improve current technology and business processes could cause disruptions in our operations or cause our solution to be less competitive, all of which could have a material adverse effect on our business.
Risks Related to Ownership of Our Securities
The price of our common stock and warrants may be volatile.
The price of our common stock, as well as our warrants, may fluctuate due to a variety of factors, including:
•changes in the industry in which we operate;
•developments involving our competitors;
•changes in laws and regulations affecting our business, or changes in policies with respect to student loan forgiveness;
•our ability to complete the acquisition of a national bank charter;
•changes in interest rates;
•variations in our operating performance and the performance of our competitors in general;
•actual or anticipated fluctuations in our quarterly or annual operating results;
•publication of research reports by securities analysts about us or our competitors or our industry;
•the public’s reaction to our press releases, our other public announcements and our filings with the SEC;
•actions by stockholders;
•additions and departures of key personnel;
•commencement of, or involvement in, litigation involving our company;
•changes in our capital structure, such as future issuances of securities or the incurrence of additional debt;
•the volume of shares of our common stock or warrants available for public sale; and
•general economic and political conditions, such as the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, recessions, interest rates, inflation, local and national elections, corruption, political instability and acts of war or terrorism.
These market and industry factors may materially reduce the market price of our common stock and warrants regardless of our operating performance.
We do not intend to pay cash dividends for the foreseeable future.
We currently intend to retain our future earnings, if any, to finance the further development and expansion of our business and do not intend to pay cash dividends in the foreseeable future. Any future determination to pay dividends will be at the discretion of our board of directors and will depend on our financial condition, results of operations, capital requirements, restrictions contained in future agreements and financing instruments, business prospects and such other factors as our board of directors deems relevant.
If analysts publish inaccurate or unfavorable research, our stock price and trading volume could decline.
The trading market for our common stock depends in part on the research and reports that analysts publish about our business. We do not have any control over these analysts. If one or more of the analysts who cover us downgrade our common stock or publish inaccurate or unfavorable research about our business, the price of our common stock would likely decline. If few analysts cover us, demand for our common stock could decrease and our common stock price and trading volume may decline. Similar results may occur if one or more of these analysts stop covering us in the future or fail to publish reports on us regularly. In addition, analysts may establish and publish their own periodic projections for us. These projections may vary widely and may not accurately predict the results we actually achieve. Our share price may decline if our actual results do not match the projections of these research analysts.
We may be subject to securities litigation, which is expensive and could divert management attention.
The market price of our common stock may be volatile and, in the past, companies that have experienced volatility in the market price of their stock have been subject to securities class action litigation. We may be the target of this type of litigation in the future. Securities litigation against us could result in substantial costs and divert management’s attention from other business concerns, which could seriously harm our business.
Future resales of our common stock may cause the market price of our securities to drop significantly, even if our business is doing well.
Pursuant to the lock-up restrictions agreed to into in connection with the Agreement and our bylaws, subject to certain exceptions, SCH Sponsor V LLC (the “Sponsor”), Jay Parikh, stockholders of SoFi and holders of SoFi awards prior to the Business Combination (the “SoFi Stockholders”), and SoFi Stockholders who beneficially owned 5% or greater of SoFi and certain executive officers of SoFi were contractually restricted from selling or transferring any of its or their shares of common stock (not including the shares of common stock issued in the PIPE Investment pursuant to the terms of the Subscription Agreements) (the “Lock-up Shares”). Such restrictions began at closing of the Business Combination and ended (I) in the case of the lock-up restrictions agreed to in connection with the Agreement, with respect to the Sponsor and certain of the SoFi Stockholders on July 27, 2021 with respect to 83.33% of the Lock-up Shares and (II) in the case of the restrictions contained in our bylaws with respect to the SoFi Stockholders on June 27, 2021.
Following the expiration of the remaining Lock-up Shares described above, the Sponsor and the SoFi Stockholders will not be restricted from selling the shares of common stock held by them, other than by applicable securities laws. Additionally, the third party investors that participated in the PIPE Investment (the “Third Party PIPE Investors”) are not restricted from selling any of the shares of common stock acquired in the PIPE Investment following the closing of the Business Combination, other than by applicable securities laws. As such, sales of a substantial number of shares of common stock in the public market could
occur at any time. We have filed with the SEC, and the SEC has declared effective, a registration statement covering shares of our common stock issued in connection with the Agreement, including shares issued to the Third Party PIPE Investors, among others, to facilitate such sales. These sales, or the perception in the market that the holders of a large number of shares intend to sell shares, could cause the market price of our common stock to decline or increase the volatility in the market price of our common stock.
Our warrants are exercisable for shares of common stock, which could increase the number of shares eligible for future resale in the public market and result in dilution to our stockholders.
Outstanding warrants to purchase an aggregate of 40,295,990 shares of common stock will become exercisable in accordance with the terms of the warrant agreements governing those securities. As of the date of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, 12,170,990 of our warrants are exercisable. To the extent such warrants are exercised, additional shares of common stock will be issued, which will result in dilution to the holders of our common stock and increase the number of shares eligible for resale in the public market. Sales of substantial numbers of such shares in the public market or the fact that such warrants may be exercised could adversely affect the market price of our common stock. However, there is no guarantee that the public warrants will remain in the money prior to their expiration, and as such, the warrants may expire worthless.
The terms of the public warrants and private placement warrants may be amended in a manner adverse to a holder if holders of at least 65% of the then outstanding warrants approve of such amendment.
The warrant agreement governing the public warrants and private placement warrants provides that (a) the terms of the public warrants and private placement warrants may be amended without the consent of any holder for the purpose of (i) curing any ambiguity or correcting any mistake, including to conform the provisions of the warrant agreement to the description of the terms of the warrants and the warrant agreement set forth in the Proxy Statement/Prospectus, or defective provision or (ii) adding or changing any provisions with respect to matters or questions arising under the warrant agreement as the parties to the warrant agreement may deem necessary or desirable and that the parties deem to not adversely affect the rights of the registered holders of the warrants under the warrant agreement and (b) all other modifications or amendments require the vote or written consent of at least 65% of the then outstanding warrants; provided that any amendment that solely affects the terms of the Sponsor-held private placement warrants or any provision of the warrant agreement solely with respect to the Sponsor-held private placement warrants will also require at least 65% of the then outstanding Sponsor-held private placement warrants.
Accordingly, we may amend the terms of the public warrants and private placement warrants in a manner adverse to a holder if holders of at least 65% of the then outstanding public warrants approve of such amendment. Although our ability to amend the terms of the public warrants and private placement warrants with the consent of at least 65% of the then outstanding public warrants is unlimited (subject to the proviso in the preceding paragraph), examples of such amendments could be amendments to, among other things, increase the exercise price of the public warrants and private placement warrants, shorten the exercise period or decrease the number of ordinary shares purchasable upon exercise of a public warrants and private placement warrants.
We may redeem unexpired public warrants prior to their exercise at a time that is disadvantageous to the warrant holders, thereby making the warrants worthless.
We have the ability to redeem outstanding public warrants at any time after they become exercisable and prior to their expiration, at a price of $0.01 per warrant if, among other things, the reference value equals or exceeds $18.00 per share (as adjusted for adjustments to the number of shares issuable upon exercise or the exercise price of a warrant). If and when the public warrants become redeemable by us, we may exercise our redemption right even if we are unable to register or qualify the underlying securities for sale under all applicable state securities laws. As a result, we may redeem the public warrants as set forth above even if the holders are otherwise unable to exercise the public warrants. Redemption of the outstanding public warrants as described above could force a holder to: (i) exercise its public warrants and pay the exercise price therefor at a time when it may be disadvantageous for the holder to do so; (ii) sell its public warrants at the then-current market price when such holder might otherwise wish to hold its public warrants; or (iii) accept the nominal redemption price which, at the time the outstanding public warrants are called for redemption, we expect would be substantially less than the market value of the holder’s public warrants. None of the Sponsor-held private placement warrants are redeemable by us (subject to limited exceptions) so long as they are held by Sponsor or its permitted transferees.
In addition, we have the ability to redeem the outstanding public warrants at any time after they become exercisable and prior to their expiration, at a price of $0.10 per warrant if, among other things, the last reported sale price of our common stock for any 20 trading days within a 30-trading day period ending on the third trading day prior to the date on which we send the notice of redemption to the warrant holders equals or exceeds $10.00 per share (as adjusted for share splits, share dividends,
rights issuances, subdivisions, reorganizations, recapitalizations and the like). In such a case, the holders will be able to exercise their public warrants prior to redemption for a number of shares of common stock determined based on the redemption date and the fair market value of common stock. The value received upon exercise of the public warrants (i) may be less than the value the holders would have received if they had exercised their public warrants at a later time where the underlying share price is higher and (ii) may not compensate the holders for the value of the public warrants, including because the number of ordinary shares received is capped at 0.361 shares of common stock per warrant (subject to adjustment) irrespective of the remaining life of the public warrants.
Our issuance of additional capital stock in connection with financings, acquisitions, investments, our stock incentive plans or otherwise will dilute all other stockholders.
Our issuance of additional capital stock in connection with financings, acquisitions, investments, our stock incentive plans or otherwise will dilute our stockholders. We expect to issue additional capital stock in the future that will result in dilution to all other stockholders. We expect to grant equity awards to employees, directors, and consultants under our stock incentive plans. We may also raise capital through equity financings in the future. As part of our business strategy, we may acquire or make investments in complementary companies, products, or technologies and issue equity securities to pay for any such acquisition or investment. Any such issuances of additional capital stock may cause stockholders to experience significant dilution of their ownership interests and the per share value of our common stock to decline.
There can be no assurance that we will be able to comply with the continued listing standards of Nasdaq.
If Nasdaq delists our shares of common stock or warrants from trading on its exchange for failure to meet Nasdaq’s listing standards, we and our stockholders could face significant material adverse consequences, including:
•a limited availability of market quotations for our securities;
•reduced liquidity for our securities;
•a determination that our common stock is a “penny stock” which will require brokers trading in our common stock to adhere to more stringent rules and possibly result in a reduced level of trading activity in the secondary trading market for our securities;
•a limited amount of news and analyst coverage; and
•a decreased ability to issue additional securities or obtain additional financing in the future.
Delaware law and our organizational documents contain certain provisions, including anti-takeover provisions that limit the ability of stockholders to take certain actions and could delay or discourage takeover attempts that stockholders may consider favorable.
The Delaware General Corporation Law (the “DGCL”) and our organizational documents contain provisions that could have the effect of rendering more difficult, delaying, or preventing an acquisition that stockholders may consider favorable, including transactions in which stockholders might otherwise receive a premium for their shares. These provisions could also limit the price that investors might be willing to pay in the future for shares of our common stock, and therefore depress the trading price of our common stock. Additionally, these provisions could also make it difficult for stockholders to take certain actions, including electing directors who are not nominated by the current members of our board of directors or taking other corporate actions, including effecting changes in our management. Among other things, our organizational documents include provisions regarding:
•the ability of our board of directors to issue shares of preferred stock, including “blank check” preferred stock and to determine the price and other terms of those shares, including preferences and voting rights, without stockholder approval, which could be used to significantly dilute the ownership of a hostile acquirer;
•the prohibition of cumulative voting in the election of directors, which limits the ability of minority stockholders to elect director candidates;
•limitations on the liability of, and the indemnification of, our directors and officers;
•the ability of our board of directors to amend our bylaws, which may allow our board of directors to take additional actions to prevent an unsolicited takeover and inhibit the ability of an acquirer to amend our bylaws to facilitate an unsolicited takeover attempt; and
•advance notice procedures with which stockholders must comply to nominate candidates to our board of directors or to propose matters to be acted upon at a stockholders’ meeting, which could preclude stockholders from bringing matters before annual or special meetings of stockholders and delay changes in our board of directors and also may discourage or deter a potential acquirer from conducting a solicitation of proxies to elect the acquirer’s own slate of directors or otherwise attempting to obtain control of our company.
These provisions, alone or together, could delay or prevent hostile takeovers and changes in control or changes in the board of directors or management of our company.
The provisions of our bylaws requiring exclusive forum in the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware and the federal district courts of the United States for certain types of lawsuits may have the effect of discouraging certain lawsuits, including derivative lawsuits and lawsuits against our directors and officers, by limiting plaintiffs’ ability to bring a claim in a judicial forum that they find favorable.
Our bylaws provide that, to the fullest extent permitted by law, and unless we consent in writing to the selection of an alternative forum, the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware (or, in the event that such court does not have jurisdiction, the federal district court for the District of Delaware or other state courts of the State of Delaware) will be the sole and exclusive forum for any state law claims for (i) any derivative action or proceeding brought on our behalf, (ii) any action asserting a claim for or based on a breach of a fiduciary duty owed by any of our current or former directors, officers or other employees to us or our stockholders, (iii) any action asserting a claim against us or any of our current or former directors, officers or other employees arising pursuant to any provision of the DGCL or our bylaws or Certificate of Incorporation (as either may be amended from time to time), (iv) any action asserting a claim related to or involving our company that is governed by the internal affairs doctrine, and (v) any action asserting an “internal corporate claim” as that term is defined in Section 115 of the DGCL (the “Delaware Forum Provision”). The Delaware Forum Provision, however, does not apply to actions or claims arising under the Exchange Act. Our bylaws also provide that, unless we consent in writing to the selection of an alternate forum, the sole and exclusive forum for the resolution of any complaint asserting a cause of action arising under the Securities Act, and the rules and regulations promulgated thereunder, will be the United States Federal District Courts. Section 27 of the Exchange Act creates exclusive federal jurisdiction over all suits brought to enforce any duty or liability created by the Exchange Act or the rules and regulations thereunder; our stockholders cannot and will not be deemed to have waived compliance with the U.S. federal securities laws and the rules and regulations thereunder.
These provisions may have the effect of discouraging certain lawsuits, including derivative lawsuits and lawsuits against our directors and officers, by limiting plaintiffs’ ability to bring a claim in a judicial forum that they find favorable. The enforceability of similar choice of forum provisions in other companies’ certificates of incorporation or bylaws has been challenged in legal proceedings, and it is possible that, in connection with any applicable action brought against our company, a court could find the choice of forum provisions contained in the Bylaws to be inapplicable or unenforceable in such action.
Item 2. Unregistered Sales of Equity Securities and Use of Proceeds
Purchases of Equity Securities by the Issuer and Affiliated Purchasers
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Period
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Total Number of Shares Purchased
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Average Price Paid Per Share
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Total Shares Purchased as Part of Publicly Announced Plans or Programs
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Maximum That may Yet Be Purchased Under the Plans or Programs
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May 1 – May 31, 2021(1)
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15,000,000
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$
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10.00
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—
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$
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—
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Total
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15,000,000
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$
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10.00
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—
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$
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—
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__________________
(1)On May 28, 2021, concurrently with the Closing of the Business Combination, the Company repurchased 15,000,000 shares of redeemable common stock for an aggregate purchase price of $150.0 million from a previous SoFi redeemable preferred stockholder.
Item 3. Defaults Upon Senior Securities
None.
Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosures
Not applicable.
Item 5. Other Information
None.
Item 6. Exhibits
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Exhibit No.
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Description
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101.INS
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Inline XBRL Instance Document - the instance document does not appear in the interactive data file because its XBRL tags are embedded within the Inline XBRL document
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101.SCH
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Inline XBRL Taxonomy Extension Schema Document
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101.CAL
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Inline XBRL Taxonomy Extension Calculation Linkbase Document
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101.LAB
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Inline XBRL Taxonomy Extension Label Linkbase Document
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101.PRE
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Inline XBRL Taxonomy Extension Presentation Linkbase Document
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101.DEF
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Inline XBRL Taxonomy Extension Definition Linkbase Document
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104
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Cover Page Interactive Data File (formatted as inline XBRL and contained in Exhibit 101)
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