The shares of SoFiAfter-hours trading rose to more than 16% on Tuesday, following the news that fintech had cleared all regulatory hurdles in becoming a banking institution.

SoFi in San Francisco received permission from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve to be a bank holding firm. Mobile-first financing company SoFi offers banking products, including debit cards and cash accounts as well as loans. It is not technically a bank. Like many fintech companies, it relies onPartnerships with FDIC-insured bank to deposit customer funds and make loans

SoFi intends to purchase Golden Pacific Bancorp, a California community lender. SoFi will then operate its bank subsidiary under the name SoFi Bank. This deal was first announced last January, and it is anticipated to close in February.

Although officially joining the bank business means more regulation oversight, it can also help improve the company’s economy. SoFi receives a greater share of transactions by eliminating the middleman. Anthony Noto, CEO of SoFi, stated that a national bank charter would allow for lending at higher interest rates and provide customers with better-yielding accounts.

Noto is a former partner of at Goldman Sachs and formerly chief operating officer at TwitterIn a statement

SoFi is on the lookout for a charter bank for over three years. It filed a request for the charter at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency before it went through the route of bank acquisition. Preliminary approval was granted by the OCC in October.

In 2008, the company went public. mergingWith a company that isn’t checked by the venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya. As investors move away from tech-based companies that are high-growth, shares have fallen this year. The shares had fallen 23% since the start of the year, as per the closing Tuesday.