SoFi, an American personal finance company, announced today that it has acquired 8 Securities, a fintech platform based in Hong Kong. 8 Securities will be rebranded as SoFi Hong Kong as a result of the acquisition.
This marks SoFi’s first international foothold outside of the US.
Anthony Noto, CEO of SoFi shared a statement: “We underwent an extensive process in considering our initial expansion into an international market, and it quickly became clear that Hong Kong, the financial capital of Asia, is ripe for innovation.”
“Based on the platform we’ve built, SoFi, together with 8 Securities, can meet the needs of both experienced and novice investors alike, as part of our overall efforts to make headway on our mission outside of the US to help people get their money right,” he continued.
With SoFi, the company will be the only brokerage service that delivers free stock trading of over 15,000 US and Hong Kong stocks, as well as ETFs, with zero commissions, zero platform fees and zero custodian fees.
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Members will be able to follow the investment portfolios of top-performing members of the community and learn what they are buying, selling, and holding. They will also see how their individual performances rank against their peers.
Before the acquisition, 8 Securities was a mobile investing and robo-advisory service in Hong Kong. The company was Asia’s first mobile-only investing service, robo-advisor, social trading platform with zero commission brokerage.
It was one of Hong Kong’s first licensed consumer fintech companies and has previously raised US$70 million in capital. The company was founded by Mathias Helleu and Mikaal Abdulla, who, prior to starting it in 2012, led E*TRADE‘s international business across 14 countries.
SoFi has recently finished a US$1.2 billion acquisition of financial API and payments platform Galileo. The platform will also be a means to distribute white label investing, savings, and lending products to B2B customers.
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