Robinhood Working On Stock-Lending Feature, Competes With Fidelity, Morgan Stanley: Bloomberg

Robinhood Markets Inc HOOD is working within its app to allow users to loan out their stocks to other financial institutions to compete with more conventional brokerages. 

The program, known as fully paid securities lending, could be available in the coming months, said Robinhood. Work on the feature appeared in a beta version of its iPhone app. 

"We are still on target to release this product in the first half of 2022, which will provide even more value to our customers," Robinhood representative Rouky Diallo said in an emailed statement. Code describing the service was discovered by developer Steve Moser and shared the information with Bloomberg.

The service is called Stock Loan Income Program (SLIP) within the app, giving users "the opportunity to earn passive income by lending whole shares of stocks to other institutions," according to the feature's description.

The lending program would rival similar features offered by Fidelity Investments, Morgan Stanley's MS E*Trade, and Charles Schwab Corp, which allow customers to earn passive income by loaning their stocks.

In January, Chief Executive Officer Vlad Tenev said that Robinhood was working on such a feature without offering specifics. 

Price Action: HOOD shares traded 0.16% higher at $12.80 during after-hours trading on Wednesday.

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