Former Deutsche Bank CEO Anshu Jain has been appointed to the board of Social Finance, or SoFi, which is startup propagating a ‘bankless world’. Jain, who resigned from Deutsche in 2015, will be the first top former bank executive to be added to SoFi’s board of directors. He will first join SoFi as an adviser and eventually as a board member. SoFi is an online business, which aims to compete with traditional banks by offering student, personal and home loans on better terms by cutting out branches and selling the loans they originate to the market rather than holding them. It is also rolling out a series of wealth management products and had launched a marketing campaign, including a $5 million Super Bowl ad, that urges: ‘Don’t bank. SoFi’. Softbank had earlier led a billion-dollar investment in the five-year old San Francisco company, which valued SoFi at nearly $4 billion.
