Online lender Social Finance (SoFi) is going to announce this week its plan to refinance auto loans by teaming up with startup MotoRefi, Bloomberg reports.
MotoRefi provides an online platform that connects debtors with banks and credit unions and takes care of the paperwork that comes with reworking auto loans with state motor vehicle departments, the news outlet reported.
SoFi customers will be able to connect to MotoRefi’s technology by connecting borrowers with the auto refinancing options through Lantern, a product comparison site, Forbes reported. MotoRefi will also pay SoFi a referral fee as part of the partnership, Forbes reported.
Launched in 2017, MotoRefi aims to process $1 billion in loans this year. Last year the startup handled $250 million worth of loans, Bloomberg reported.
“We constantly hear from our members on what products they’d like us to offer, and auto loans have been a consistent request,” Jennifer Nuckles, a SoFi executive vice president, said according to Bloomberg. “We also looked at our internal data and found that a large portion of our members carry large auto loan balances, and … could benefit from refinancing.”
SoFi started in 2011 with an initial focus on student loan refinancing for millennials. It now offers stock and cryptocurrency trading, personal and mortgage loans, and wealth management services.
MotoRefi CEO Kevin Bennett told Forbes in an interview that he thinks of the potential billions of dollars in auto loans.
“That’s a lot of auto loans that really should be refinanced,” Bennett said to Forbes. “We want to make auto refinance as common as mortgage refi.”
Recently, SoFi announced that it will offer its users the ability to invest in IPOs for companies going public. Typically, these opportunities are reserved for institutional investors. SoFi expects to offer a couple of IPO securities in the months ahead that will be available for its “SoFi Invest members through the SoFi app.”
In January, FinLedger reported that SoFi plans to go public through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) backed by billionaire VC investor Chamath Palihapitiya. The deal would value San Francisco-based SoFi at $8.65 billion.