US neobroker Robinhood (NASDAQ:HOOD) saw its shares trade up sharply on Wednesday morning, after overnight the company unveiled its first credit card for clients – the Robinhood Gold Card.
Robinhood called its Gold Card “the only credit card you’ll need”, although at least initially it is being offered exclusively for Robinhood Gold members. The Robinhood Gold Card has no annual fee, no foreign transaction fees, and offers 3% cash back on all categories, or 5% cash back on travel when booked through the all-new Robinhood travel portal.
The Robinhood Gold Card is offered by Robinhood Credit, Inc., and is issued by Coastal Community Bank (Member FDIC), pursuant to a license from Visa USA Inc.
In response to the announcement, Robinhood shares jumped by 6-7% in premarket trading Wednesday, but settled down to just below $20 (up about 3%) in mid-morning trading. The $20 level marks the highest that Robinhood stock has been since late 2021.
The reason for the share price jump seems to be not just due to the credit card itself, but the direction that Robinhood is taking – becoming more of a one-stop-shop retail financial supermarket, as opposed to just as online broker for meme stocks and crypto.
In an interview with CNBC this morning (see video below), Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev (who just saw the departure of his co-founder Baiju Bhatt last week) said that the company wants to build a world for customers where all of their assets are custodied at Robinhood, and every financial transaction goes through Robinhood – with credit being a critical part of the equation.
Vlad Tenev’s interview on CNBC this morning follows below.
