Frequently Asked Questions

• 1. A US citizen or permanent resident.
• 2. Hold a 4-year undergraduate or graduate degree from a Title IV accredited institution.
• 3. Good employment history. Currently employed, have sufficient income from other sources, or have an offer of employment to start within the next 90 days.
• 4. In good standing on current student loans.
• 5. Strong monthly cash flow.
• 6. A responsible financial history.

SoFi provides you the option of adding a co-signer as an opportunity to help you qualify for a loan. Once you request a co-signer, we will instruct your co-signer to complete the application and consent to co-signing your loan. Since adding a co-signer to your application introduces additional effort for our review team, we want to ensure your co-signer is committed to helping you reduce your student debt and ask for their consent to co-sign at the beginning of the process. We will notify you if you are pre-approved with a co-signer; from that point, you will be able to see your rates and select a loan.

Once you have been presented with your offer, SoFi recommends that you discuss the rates and loan terms with your co-signer before proceeding with your application. Your co-signer is not obligated, in any way, if you do not accept the terms.

To earn rewards for referring friends to SoFi, users must register for a SoFi.com account and sign up for the internal Referral Program to generate their unique invite links.

So long as the referred borrower correctly uses their friend’s unique invite link immediately before registration, both the referrer and the referred borrower will earn a reward automatically after the referred borrower’s loan has been funded.

All individuals, regardless of whether they are current SoFi borrowers, can sign up for a referral account to refer their friends to SoFi.

However, not everyone is eligible for a welcome bonus. Only brand new SoFi customers are eligible to receive a welcome bonus (or generate a referral reward for the friend who referred them). If the referred applicant already has a SoFi account, does not use their friend’s unique referral link when first creating their SoFi account, or has an account associated with another promotion, their application will not earn a welcome bonus, and their referring friend will not earn a referral reward.

Referrers will never receive credit for referring themselves or for refinancing their existing SoFi loan. Each referred SoFi Refinance Community Member is eligible for at most one welcome bonus. SoFi reserves the right to disqualify anyone from this program at any time.

The SoFi Referral Program only applies to student loan refinancing (“ReFi”), Parent Plus loans and personal loans. MBA loans, mortgages, and all other types of SoFi products are ineligible for the Referral Program.

You may refer friends, family members, coworkers, and direct acquaintances. Only brand new SoFi customers are eligible for a welcome bonus under our referral program.

Send your friend your unique invite link before they first register for their SoFi account and create an application. Your friend should use your invite link just prior to registering for their SoFi account and starting the application process.

Please note that only brand new applicants for SoFi student loan refinancing are eligible to generate a referral reward for you or a welcome bonus for themselves.

For privacy reasons, we cannot disclose the names or contact information of people who have used your unique referral link, but your referral account dashboard at sofi.com/b/ will allow you to see the number of people who have used your link correctly to register or refinance.

Your referred friend will also be able to see their association with your referral account after their refinance application has been approved. If they correctly used your referral link when first registering for their SoFi account they will see a little tag on the right-hand sidebar of their approved loan application letting them know that their application has been associated with your referral account, and they can expect the a welcome bonus.

After your referred friend’s loan has been funded, you’ll both receive an email about the referral reward. Those rewards will come through ACH (based on the information you submitted when registering for the Program).

After a loan is funded, it takes up to 30 days to approve and fund referral rewards.

You must have confirmed your ACH account and routing number to collect your reward.

Reasons for this may vary. Possible reasons include:

Your friend did not apply using your unique referral invite link, in which case it has not been linked to your referral account.

Your friend’s loan has not been approved or funded.

You have not added your ACH information to your referral account.

Your friend’s application was not eligible for a referral bonus. Please see the eligibility criteria above.

Have your friend email refer@sofi.com from the email address they used in their SoFi application with the following information to see if you may still be eligible:

Your friend’s full name and the email address used in their SoFi application.

Your full name, email address, and unique invite link.

Details of how and when you referred them to SoFi.

Exceptions are not guaranteed and will be determined on a case-by-case basis.

You must use your friend’s unique URL immediately prior to registering for your SoFi account and starting your loan application.

Please note that only new applicants for personal loans and student loan refinancing are eligible for a welcome bonus.

After your loan has been funded, you’ll receive an email about the welcome bonus. You will be asked to add your ACH account and routing number to your referral account profile if you have not already done so. Once that’s done, we can send the payment via ACH.

After a loan is funded, it takes up to 30 days to approve and fund referral rewards.

Reasons for this may vary. Possible reasons include:

You did not apply using your friend’s unique referral invite link, in which case it has not been linked to your friend’s referral account.

Your loan has not yet been funded.

You have not added or confirmed ACH information to your referral account.

Your application was not eligible for a referral bonus. Exclusions include if you’re already a SoFi member, if you started an account/application before receiving your friend’s referral link, or if you tried to refer yourself. Clicking on a friend’s referral link after you registered and created a SoFi application will not work retroactively.

Please email refer@sofi.com from the email address you used in your SoFi application with the following information to see if you may still be eligible:

Your full name and the email address used in your SoFi application.

Your friend’s full name, email address, and unique referral URL.

Details of how and when your friend referred you to SoFi.

Once you join the Entrepreneur Program, you are part of our network indefinitely. Core benefits of the program, including formal pitch opportunities and coordinated peer networking, last 6 months.

No, you can receive most benefits remotely, though we will facilitate occasional in-person events for members in the San Francisco Bay Area.

If you lose your job through no fault of your own, you may apply for the Unemployment Protection Program. If approved for the program, SoFi will put your loans into forbearance, suspending your monthly SoFi loan payments. Unemployment Protection is offered in three month increments, and is capped at 12 months, in aggregate, over the life of the loan.

During each three-month forbearance period, unpaid interest will continue to accrue and will be capitalized (added) onto your principal balance. You do have the option to make interest-only payments during this period in order to prevent the interest from increasing your principal balance.

Refinanced student loans and personal loans are eligible for Unemployment Protection. Mortgage loans are not eligible for Unemployment Protection.

To apply for this assistance you must:

• – Be a current SoFi member
• – Provide proof that you are eligible for unemployment benefits, or have proof of involuntary severance with an employer
• – Actively work with our Career Advisory Group to look for new employment

The application process depends on the type of loan you have:

If you have more than one type of loan with SoFi, you’ll need to apply for Unemployment Protection for each loan. Note that mortgage loans are not eligible for Unemployment Protection.

Note that the same application process should be followed if extending past the initial three-month Unemployment Protection term.

When approved for Unemployment Protection, your loan is placed into forbearance. This status is reported to the credit bureaus, and may be a factor in credit-based decisions from other institutions.

Each forbearance period lasts for three months. You can re-apply to extend this in three-month increments, up to 12 months over the life of the loan.

During the forbearance period, interest will continue to accrue. Unpaid interest will be capitalized (added) to your principal balance at the end of each three-month forbearance period. If you’re able, we recommend making interest-only payments during this time in order to prevent the interest from being capitalized to the loan principal.

For student loans, forbearance does not extend the loan repayment term.

For personal loans, forbearance does extend the loan repayment term.

To be eligible for Unemployment Protection, you must be a current SoFi member and provide proof that you are eligible for unemployment benefits or have proof of involuntary severance with an employer.

Denial for Unemployment Protection may happen because:

Regardless of your enrollment in Unemployment Protection, all members can request job search assistance from the Career Advisory Group, who can advise on job search and interview techniques, networking, and offer negotiation.

No. Once a forbearance is approved, it is not revoked regardless of employment status. Members can choose to resume payments if they’d like; however, they can wait until the forbearance officially ends to begin making payments.

Note that interest will continue to accrue and be capitalized onto the loan’s principal balance during your forbearance period. Please read the How will my loan payments be affected after Unemployment Protection ends? section for more information.

ETFs are exchange-traded funds. These are collections of investments that trade as a single security, and they commonly offer a simplified, low-cost way to invest in a diversified portfolio of stocks and/or bonds. On the one hand, they work like mutual funds, with tax advantages as well as diversification from investing in a broad range of assets. On the other hand, you get the flexibility and low costs of individual stocks.

ETFs can invest in most types of securities, and be actively managed or not. Actively managed ETFs typically have higher management fees than passively managed ones. SoFi Wealth primarily invests in passively invested ETFs through its model portfolios. We proactively manage the mix of these funds and will change that mix as world economic conditions or our outlook change. This gives you the advantages of active management, the broad diversification of index funds, and the low fees of index ETFs and our ultra-low management fee. Keep in mind that diversification does not eliminate risk and does not assure better performance.

To find out more about term life insurance and other helpful articles, visit Protective’s Learning Center. You can also reach out to their helpful experts with any questions at 1-888-618-6617.