As Tupac once said, “I don’t have no fear of death. My only fear is coming back reincarnated.” Unlike Tupac, however, Loyal3 users have nothing to be scared of. That’s because even though Loyal3 is shutting down its IPO marketplace and discount brokerage platform on May 19, stock gift card company Stockpile has stepped in to allow Loyal3 clients to transfer their shares to its platform.
Launched in 2008, Loyal3 sought to democratize capital markets by helping novice investors purchase fractional stock shares. Users could browse the company’s portfolio of 70 stocks and invest with as little as $10 per stock, with zero fees. The company’s batch trading strategy executed trades once per day. At FinovateFall 2014, the company showed off its mobile IPO marketplace where users could view the IPO status, receive IPO pricing and allocation notifications, and confirm or withdraw their IPO reservations.
To capture Loyal3 clients, Palo Alto-based Stockpile has facilitated the onboarding process for the new customers. Users just sign up for a Stockpile account, email a recent Loyal3 account statement to Stockpile’s customer support, and Stockpile returns a (mostly) pre-filled account form. Users complete, sign, and upload the form to Stockpile, which oversees the transition of assets over to its platform. The only wrinkle is that Stockpile cannot accept stocks from Frontier and Nokia; users will need to cash out those stocks.
This isn’t Stockpile’s first move to expand its user base. In 2016, the company acquired SparkGift, transferring SparkGift’s customer base to its own brokerage platform for free. In 2015 the company partnered with Blackhawk Network to offer physical gift cards in denominations of $25, $50, and $100 at select U.S. retailers. Founded in 2010, by Avi Lele and Sanj Kulkarni, Stockpile launched at FinovateSpring 2014 in a demo that won Best of Show.
