A quick, seamless API for wealth management customer authentication and data aggregation may not fix all of SoFi’s problems, but it certainly helps.
The alternative lender demoed its Authentication API, developed by Quovo, a financial data aggregator for wealth management, at the FinDEVr conference today.
“What’s important to call out is the combo of authentication and aggregation,” said Stephen Sikes, head of strategy for SoFi Wealth at the conference. “We’re going to pull in all of the customer information, we’re going to show them all of the information that comes from their existing accounts, and give them the opportunity to link more accounts, share more, for better services.”
It only took about one minute for Sikes to link a bank account to SoFi’s wealth platform and set up a recurring contribution during the demo. Together with Quovo, the two companies have so far added over 200 financial institutions to the instant authentication service.
The API service is available primarily for the U.S., but it does support international accounts; Quovo has served customers in Canada and Australia, as well as clients in Europe.
“Our API is a RESTful API, kind of table stakes for today. It is intuitive and scalable and it makes sense, it’s easy to use and has a lot of visiblity,” said Michael Del Monte, co-founder and CTO for Quovo. “At SoFi’s suggestion we added an [aggregation and authentication] combo, so we look at the routing and account number alongside transaction history, balances, portfolios, and more. That’s going to open up doors for us and for SoFi.”
A seamless wealth management API service might not offset SoFi’s loan losses, but it will help the fintech expand its services outside of the lending origins.
SoFi’s most intriguing news this year isn’t the speed or transparency of the wealth management authentication API–values Sikes referred to often during his demo. Rather, it is the half a billion round of funding led by Silver Lakes Partners, which, SoFi hopes, will provide the lender with the growth necessary to move past the scalability issues that are impacting the alternative lending industry.