The deal, whose sticker value is $1.2 billion, is a significant improvement on the earth of so-called challenger banks—a time period that describes the rising variety of on-line startups that depend on third events, together with Galileo, to assist their tech and authorized operations. As stated SoFi CEO Anthony Noto in a press release asserting the deal:

Whereas we march ahead on our mission to assist individuals obtain monetary independence by our personal direct efforts, with Galileo, we are able to allow a broader ecosystem of corporations to hitch us in serving to the world over obtain monetary independence

The announcement didn’t present monetary particulars of the acquisition, however an individual conversant in the deal stated $875 million of the acquisition value is within the type of SoFi shares. The excellent steadiness can be paid with $75 million in money, and $250 million in debt financing.

The acquisition will, in principle, give SoFi leverage over the likes of Robinhood and Chime, which compete with SoFi, since they rely upon Galileo for day-to-day operations. Among the many providers Galileo supplies are account setup, funding, direct deposit, early paycheck direct deposit, and invoice pay.

The supply conversant in the deal, nonetheless, stated SoFi plans to function Galileo as an arm’s-length firm akin to AWS, the cloud pc firm operated by Amazon and utilized by a lot of its opponents. The supply added that SoFi intends to produce Galileo as a white-label know-how supplier in different nations, together with in Latin America.

Whereas SoFi has used Galileo as a buyer for a while, the acquisition is shocking partially as a result of each corporations are coming off intervals of turbulence. Within the case of Galileo, the 20-year-old firm suffered an enormous know-how meltdown in late 2019 that led to a number of of its shoppers, together with Chime, having to deprive their clients of banking providers for as much as 24 hours.

SoFi, in the meantime, has needed to rebuild after its founder, Mike Cagney, stepped down in 2018 amid stories of a company tradition awash in partying and sexism. On the identical time, SoFi has confronted headwinds in increasing past refinancing scholar loans—its core enterprise for years—into different providers like loans, cryptocurrency, and shopper banking.

In a latest interview with Fortune, CEO Noto stated the corporate has turned the nook, and that future development can be powered by catering to clients of all incomes, slightly than the Ivy League graduates who it lengthy thought-about its core “members.”

The particular person conversant in the Galileo acquisition additionally famous that the deal valued SoFi shares at $15.41, which is according to the corporate’s final valuation in early 2019—suggesting SoFi is weathering the present disaster in stride.