Robinhood diversifies from trading with credit card launch

The platform aims to become a broader financial services firm.

Robinhood Markets Inc., best known for offering commission-free trading, is rolling out a credit card to US consumers as it looks to become a broader financial services company.

The Robinhood Gold Card, which will be offered exclusively to members of the firm’s subscription-based Gold program, will have no annual cost or foreign-transaction fees, according to a statement Tuesday. The card offers 3% cash back on all categories of purchase, while rivals such as JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Chase Sapphire Reserve provide such rewards for only some transactions.

“Our goal is to enter this market in a big way,” Chief Executive Vlad Tenev said in an interview. “We don’t want to just roll out a credit card that our customers will adopt. We want to roll out a product that can lead the industry and move it forward.”

The company’s shares soared 6.9% to $20.61 in early market trading on Wednesday. The stock had risen 51% through the close of trading on Tuesday, far outpacing the 8.9% advance of the Russell 1000 Index.

Robinhood is expanding its offerings beyond the retail-brokerage services that made the company a household name. Early last year, the Menlo Park, California-based firm announced a retirement product. Customers had opened about 500,000 Robinhood retirement accounts by the end of last year, with deposits reaching $1.7 billion. They’d nearly doubled to more than $3 billion by February, Tenev said in the interview.

Robinhood last year bought credit-card issuer X1 Inc. for about $95 million, and firm co-founder Deepak Rao became general manager of credit cards for Robinhood, overseeing the Gold Card roll-out.

Customers will be able to access card services through a new app separate from the Robinhood trading platform. They also will be able to create virtual cards with disposable numbers for privacy, and add as many as five family members to an account. Through a referral program, some customers will be able to get a card made from 10-karat gold.

“The goal is for all of our customers to hold all of their assets in Robinhood, and for all of their transactions to go through it,” Tenev said.

As it looks to venture beyond its US trading focus, Robinhood also recently extended its zero-fee brokerage services to customers outside the country. The company last week made commission-free trading available throughout the UK, and is looking to offer additional features including options trading and margin investing. The margin-lending effort is on hold pending discussions with UK regulators.

In Tuesday’s announcement, the firm also said it will offer Robinhood Gold members a 1% unlimited boost on all incoming brokerage deposits starting in early May to shore up trading demand, which soared among individual investors when Covid-19 lockdowns kept them home during the early days of the pandemic.