In a year of major fintech acquisitions, SoFi today announced a $1.2 billion deal to acquire Galileo, a financial services API and payments platform that powers big-name fintechs like Chime and Robinhood. 

SoFi CEO Anthony Noto said the company hoped to “drive even greater financial technology innovation” after the transaction closes. 

SoFi said it aims to broaden the reach of its products through Galileo’s impressive client base. The acquisition also provides SoFi with new API and payment capabilities that may prove valuable as digital companies continue to broaden their fintech services. 

Sam Maule, managing partner for North America at the fintech consultancy 11:FS, said the deal is something of a surprise, especially given the coronavirus pandemic. “I don’t think anyone really saw this one coming,” he said. “I hadn’t heard any rumors about this, in an industry where it’s incredibly hard to keep things like this quiet.” He added that the deal helps SoFi venture into the infrastructure side of fintech, turning some of its competitors into customers. “It does also open up some interesting questions about potential conflicts of interest around those firms’ data given many are competitors.”

Today’s news is the latest in a string of acquisitions with big paydays. Visa acquired Plaid in January for $5.3 billion; LendingClub acquired Radius Bank in February for $185 million; and Intuit acquired Credit Karma for $7.1 billion in February as well. 

According to Leslie Parrish, senior analyst at Aite Group, the acquisition helps SoFi expand both its products and its customer base. With Galileo, Parrish said SoFi can “expand into a full range of financial products that it markets to businesses needing to rapidly digitize and transform.”

See also: SoFi taps Mastercard network for new payment products and rewards

The Salt Lake City-based Galileo is the operating system that provides digital banking services for several large fintech companies. In addition to Chime and Robinhood, Galileo counts Varo, Revolut and Monzo as clients. The 19-year-old company processed $53 billion in annualized payments volume last month, up from $26 billion in September, and raised a $77 million Series A in October, its first major funding.  

San Francisco-based SoFi has a reported valuation of $4.8 billion. The 9-year-old company began in student lending and has since branched out into personal loans, home loans, investing and small business financing. SoFi’s cash account, SoFi Money, uses Galileo as its payment processor.  

One VC on Twitter boiled down the Sofi-Galileo and other major fintech deals of 2020 to one word: “mindbenders.”