H

Happy Money

Personal loan marketplace connecting consumers

Head of Credit & Fraud

Full-TimeUpdated on 10/23/2026
$220k - $260k+ Annual bonus + Long-term incentive program + 401(k) match
Expert
Bachelor's, Master's, MBA, PhD
Remote in USA
RemoteFully distributed remote workforce.
Finance & BankingRisk Management

About the job

Requirements
  • A college degree in a quantitative discipline such as Economics, Finance, Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics, Business, Science, or Computer Science, or equivalent experience.
  • At least 12 years of experience in financial services.
  • At least 8 years of credit risk experience, including direct ownership of credit strategy or credit policy decisions for a consumer lending portfolio.
  • Experience owning or partnering closely on fraud risk strategy and controls.
  • A proven track record of building, leading, and developing high-performing teams, including remote, multidisciplinary teams.
  • Experience building trust across cross-functional teams and cultivating an environment where feedback is given freely and effectively.
  • Experience presenting data-driven strategic decisions to C-suite executives, boards, and external partners or investors with influence.
  • Direct experience working with capital partners, bank partners, lenders, or investors on credit performance, due diligence, or credit program design.
  • Experience working across Product, Engineering, Data Science, and Operations to build and scale credit and fraud decisioning processes and systems.
  • Working knowledge of consumer lending regulation, including fair lending (ECOA / Regulation B), FCRA, and model risk management.
  • Strong data-driven approach and technical fluency to challenge models, analyses, and dashboards directly.
  • Experience balancing individual contributions with people-management needs across an organization and transitioning between strategy and execution.
Responsibilities
  • Own credit and fraud strategy and policy across the customer lifecycle, from acquisition and underwriting through account management, to maximize risk-adjusted returns and manage losses through the credit cycle.
  • Set credit risk appetite with the Chief Risk Officer and translate it into credit policy, approval criteria, and loss targets.
  • Balance loss rates, approval rates, and conversion to grow profitably, and lead the rollout of growth initiatives measured against credit and profitability targets.
  • Run a test-and-learn agenda across credit and fraud strategies, with success metrics and regular readouts.
  • Own credit performance monitoring, vintage analysis, and early-warning indicators, and partner with Data Science and Finance on loss forecasting and model governance.
  • Identify credit and fraud risks early, including changes in consumer credit health and new fraud patterns, and respond with policy and control changes.
  • Work with Legal & Compliance to ensure credit and fraud policies meet regulatory, fair lending, and partner requirements.
  • Recruit, develop, and lead a team of credit, fraud, and strategy professionals; set goals, coach for growth, and hold the team to a high standard.
  • Build the appropriate mix of in-house talent, third-party partners, and automation tools, including AI.
  • Set the function’s operating rhythm, including credit committee materials, portfolio performance reviews, a central knowledge base, and regular leadership updates.
  • Build a culture of accountability, curiosity, and sound judgment, and develop future leaders on the team.
  • Partner with the Executive Leadership Team on company strategy, annual planning, growth targets, and risk appetite, and provide a credit perspective on growth and investment decisions.
  • Present credit and fraud performance, forecasts, risks, and recommendations to the Executive Leadership Team, and support reporting to the Board of Directors.
  • Work with Pricing, Data Science, Data Strategy, Product, Engineering, Marketing, Operations, Capital Markets, Finance, and Legal & Compliance to design, launch, and scale credit and fraud strategies.
  • Partner with Product and Engineering on the decisioning, data, and tooling roadmap that credit and fraud strategies depend on.
  • Own the function’s end-to-end analytics workflow, including defining success and performance metrics, sharing them company-wide, and building actionable dashboards and reports.
  • Serve as the senior credit contact for capital partners, including credit unions, banks, and institutional investors.
  • Present portfolio performance, credit policy changes, and loss expectations to capital partners, and answer their credit questions with data.
  • Work with Capital Markets on partner credit criteria, new partner onboarding, and credit programs that support funding capacity.
  • Lead the credit portion of partner and investor due diligence, audits, and reviews, including forward flow, loan sale, and financing discussions.
Desired Qualifications
  • Experience at a fintech or smaller financial services company where leaders combine strategy with hands-on execution.
  • Experience in unsecured consumer lending, such as personal loans or credit cards.
  • Experience with bank or credit union partnership models, forward flow, or loan sale programs.
  • Experience writing a credit policy as part of a new product launch.
  • Experience managing a consumer lending portfolio through a credit downturn.
  • An advanced degree: MBA, or MS / PhD in a quantitative field.

About the company

H

Happy Money

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Website

Happy Money runs a digital lending marketplace that connects consumers with community-focused lenders such as credit unions and banks to originate personal loans, mainly for debt consolidation with the Payoff Loan. The platform allows partners to acquire, underwrite, and originate loans through Happy Money, providing a turnkey channel for growth. It uses proprietary underwriting that considers cash flow and behavioral data beyond traditional FICO scores, incorporating psychological insights to assess financial behavior. Features like Direct Card Payoff enable immediate settlement of credit card balances once a loan is approved. Compared with typical lenders, Happy Money emphasizes financial wellness, a borrower-to-saver mindset, and a partnership model with community lenders. Its goal is to improve consumers’ financial well-being by helping them reduce high-interest debt and move toward saving, while expanding access through its lender partners.

Company Size

201-500

Company Stage

Debt Financing

Total Funding

$703.6M

Headquarters

Torrance, California

Founded

2009

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Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • Happy Money crossed $7 billion originations and 350,000 borrowers in May 2026.
  • Pave's 2026 custom score strengthens cashflow underwriting and deepens portfolio-specific risk insight.
  • TruMark and MSUFCU partnerships expand distribution through branded lending and participation programs.

What critics are saying

  • Bruce v. Happy Money, Inc. in Georgia threatens pricing, servicing, and disclosure practices.
  • Happy Money's 2024 WARN layoffs signal fragile operating leverage during funding swings.
  • A 2025 Fortress-Edge Focus purchase agreement concentrates funding dependence in two capital partners.

What makes Happy Money unique

  • Hive combines underwriting, pricing, servicing, and partner funding in one digital stack.
  • Happy Money's cashflow-heavy models beat FICO-only methods, cutting expected losses 40%.
  • Partner-branded lending lets credit unions lend nationally without building origination infrastructure.

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Benefits

  • Health Insurance
  • Dental Insurance
  • Vision Insurance
  • 401(k) Company Match
  • Paid Vacation
  • Paid Sick Leave
  • Paid Parental Leave
  • Disability Insurance
  • Life Insurance
  • Home Office Stipend
  • Remote Work Options
  • Performance Bonus

Growth & Insights and Company News

6 month growth

1%

1 year growth

1%

2 year growth

0%
PR Newswire
Oct 20th, 2026
Merrick Bank and Happy Money launch $500 million lending program.

Merrick Bank and Happy Money launch $500 million lending program. Oct 20, 2026, 09:07 ET Partnership expands Happy Money's capacity and further diversifies company's funding base TORRANCE, Calif., Oct. 20, 2026 /PRNewswire/ - Happy Money, a consumer finance company dedicated to empowering people to achieve their goals, today announced a new lending program with Merrick Bank that will provide up to $500 million in funding through 2027. This partnership adds to Happy Money's capital partner network and supports the company's ability to serve qualified borrowers. Merrick Bank, which holds approximately $9.3 billion in assets and maintains a loan portfolio dedicated to consumer credit, will originate and fund personal loans through its bank sponsorship partnership with Happy Money. The loans will be facilitated and serviced through Happy Money's platform. "As we conducted our due diligence on Happy Money, we came away confident in the company's disciplined approach to offering borrowers personal loans through their lending partners and in the team that runs the organization," said Louis Mrachek, EVP and Head of Consumer Lending at Merrick Bank. "We share Happy Money's commitment to making responsible, transparent credit solutions more accessible to underserved consumers, and we are excited to continue expanding our footprint across the lending and bank sponsorship landscape." Happy Money's diverse funding network includes credit unions, institutional investors and banks seeking portfolio diversification and strong risk-adjusted returns. The company continues to add funding partners, creating greater flexibility and resilience across market cycles. "Merrick Bank brings nearly three decades of consumer credit experience and a shared belief that people benefit from credit that comes with clear terms and real support," said Matt Tomko, Chief Revenue Officer of Happy Money. "This partnership gives us additional funding capacity as we continue to grow and help more people reach their financial goals." This lending program comes as Happy Money continues to meet growing demand for personal loans. According to TransUnion, U.S. personal loan balances reached a record $281 billion in the second quarter of 2026. Happy Money recently surpassed $7 billion in cumulative loan originations, helping more than 350,000 customers pay down high-interest debt and save an estimated $1 billion in interest. About Happy Money Happy Money is a consumer finance company that empowers people to achieve their goals through simple, transparent loans funded by trusted financial institutions. Through its proprietary lending platform, Hive, Happy Money delivers a fully digital experience that simplifies borrowing for consumers and helps credit unions, banks and asset managers diversify balance sheets and scale with confidence. Happy Money's end-to-end loan origination and participation programs provide partners with turnkey access to high-performing assets, underpinned by disciplined credit expertise and robust risk management. Together with its lending partners, Happy Money has originated more than $7 billion in loans to help over 350,000 people take greater control of their financial futures. Learn more at happymoney.com. About Merrick Bank Founded in 1997, Merrick Bank is The Bank That Builds(TM), an FDIC(R)-insured financial institution headquartered in South Jordan, Utah, with over $9 billion in assets. A wholly owned subsidiary of CardWorks Financial Group, Merrick Bank serves approximately five million cardmembers and more than 100,000 merchant customers, offering credit cards, recreational loans, deposit accounts, merchant services and bank sponsorships to consumers and businesses. As a leader in non-prime lending and merchant acquiring, Merrick Bank combines innovative technology and data-driven insights to help underserved consumers build and strengthen credit while providing businesses with integrated, scalable payment solutions. Merrick Bank is among the top 20 credit card issuers in the U.S. and one of the largest merchant acquirers, ranking among the top 15 by transaction volume. Learn more at www.merrickbank.com. SOURCE Happy Money

Yahoo Finance
Oct 20th, 2026
Merrick Bank and Happy Money launch $500M lending program through 2027

Happy Money, a consumer finance company, has launched a lending program with Merrick Bank that will provide up to $500 million in funding through 2027. Merrick, which holds about $9.3 billion in assets, will originate and fund personal loans through its bank sponsorship partnership with Happy Money. The loans will be facilitated and serviced on Happy Money's platform. The deal adds to a funding network that includes credit unions, institutional investors, and banks. "This partnership gives us additional funding capacity as we continue to grow," said Matt Tomko, chief revenue officer of Happy Money. The move comes as US personal loan balances hit a record $281 billion in the second quarter of 2026, according to TransUnion. Happy Money has originated more than $7 billion in loans for over 350,000 customers.

Pave
Sep 15th, 2026
Pave and Happy Money partner on custom personal loan score.

Pave and Happy Money partner on custom personal loan score. Happy Money, a consumer finance company dedicated to empowering people to achieve their goals, partnered with Pave to develop and deploy a custom personal loan score for its personal loan portfolio. Built using Happy Money's own loan performance history and consumer-permissioned bank data, the score is designed to add cashflow-based intelligence to the company's proprietary underwriting process. By translating raw transaction data into a score tuned to Happy Money's portfolio and risk outcomes, the partnership is designed to sharpen how Happy Money evaluates borrower risk. The partnership comes as Happy Money continues to scale its personal loan business and looks for additional data-driven insights to strengthen decisioning. The custom score was built specifically for Happy Money's portfolio, giving the company a view of how a borrower manages money day to day and a more tailored view of cashflow risk as the company continues to support consumers seeking personal loans for credit card debt consolidation. Demand for fixed-rate personal loans continues to rise as households carry record credit card balances, and institutional appetite for the asset class has grown alongside it. A more precise view of risk supports both sides of that equation, helping consumers consolidate high-interest debt while giving the banks, credit unions and asset managers that fund Happy Money's loans consistent asset performance. "Every enhancement we make to our underwriting is designed to help us differentiate risk more precisely and deliver consistent asset performance to our lending partners," said Tim Parsons, Chief Risk & Analytics Officer at Happy Money. "Cashflow intelligence is a meaningful signal in consumer credit, and we're glad to have Pave as a partner in putting it to work." "People with good credit scores can end up in over their heads, and a credit file alone won't tell you which direction they're heading. Happy Money helps people pay down their debt, and that's one of the reasons we're thrilled to work with them," said Ema Rouf, President at Pave. "We worked with their team to build a custom score that reads borrower behavior in real time, so Happy Money can serve more of them without adding risk." The collaboration also creates an ongoing feedback loop between underwriting decisions and loan performance. Both teams can monitor results, refine the model, and keep the score aligned with real portfolio outcomes over time. Through the partnership, Pave is bringing portfolio-specific cashflow intelligence to Happy Money with a custom score built around its borrowers, data, and risk strategy. About Pave. Pave is the AI infrastructure for credit risk teams. Pave's near-term risk scores combine cashflow, application, credit bureau, and loan performance data to predict near-term repayment outcomes. These scores power hundreds of millions of risk decisions each month across origination, payments, limit changes, and servicing. Pave's AI agents extend that foundation, automating the full credit model lifecycle for lenders. Learn more at www.pavefi.com. About Happy Money. Happy Money is a consumer finance company that empowers people to achieve their goals through simple, transparent loans funded by trusted financial institutions. Through its proprietary lending platform, Hive, Happy Money delivers a fully digital experience that simplifies borrowing for consumers and helps credit unions, banks and asset managers diversify balance sheets and scale with confidence. Happy Money's end-to-end loan origination and participation programs provide partners with turnkey access to high-performing assets, underpinned by disciplined credit expertise and robust risk management. Together with its lending partners, Happy Money has originated more than $7 billion in loans to help over 350,000 people take greater control of their financial futures. Learn more at happymoney.com.

PR Newswire
Jul 22nd, 2026
Happy Money named to CNBC's World's Top Fintech Companies for second consecutive year.

Happy Money named to CNBC's World's Top Fintech Companies for second consecutive year. Jul 22, 2026, 09:07 ET Consumer lender recognized for helping Americans consolidate credit card debt and make progress on financial goals through responsible personal loans TORRANCE, Calif., July 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ - Happy Money, a consumer finance company dedicated to empowering people to achieve their goals, has been recognized by CNBC as one of the World's Top Fintech Companies for the second year in a row. The acknowledgement highlights Happy Money's continued impact of helping consumers pay off high-interest credit card debt through personal loans. Presented in partnership with Statista, the award is based on a rigorous evaluation of more than 2,000 eligible companies, and rankings are based on in-depth analysis and category-specific key performance indicators. "Households continue to feel the pressure of high-interest credit card debt at record levels, making our fixed-rate personal loans an attractive solution for easing both the financial and emotional stress of revolving debt," said Matt Potere, CEO of Happy Money. "We're proud to be recognized as one of the World's Top Fintech Companies by CNBC for the second year in a row as we remain focused on delivering simple, transparent loans that help borrowers pay down high-interest debt faster and more affordably." Happy Money's inclusion on the list in the Alternative Financing category reflects a year of continued growth and industry recognition. The company recently surpassed $7 billion in total loan originations, helping more than 350,000 Americans pay down credit card debt and save an estimated $1 billion in interest. In fact, more than one in three Happy Money borrowers cut their card balances by more than half within six months. Strategic funding partnerships with over a dozen credit unions, banks and asset managers further demonstrate growing demand for lending solutions that benefit both consumers and financial institutions. This acknowledgment comes on the heels of Happy Money securing the FinTech Breakthrough Award for Best Consumer Lending Company for the second consecutive year. These milestones reinforce Happy Money's position as a leader in consumer lending and its commitment to delivering strong results for borrowers and lending partners alike. About Happy Money Happy Money is a consumer finance company that empowers people to achieve their goals through simple, transparent loans funded by trusted financial institutions. Through its proprietary lending platform, Hive, Happy Money delivers a fully digital experience that simplifies borrowing for consumers and helps credit unions, banks and asset managers diversify balance sheets and scale with confidence. Happy Money's end-to-end loan origination and participation programs provide partners with turnkey access to high-performing assets, underpinned by disciplined credit expertise and robust risk management. Together with its lending partners, Happy Money has originated more than $7 billion in loans to help over 350,000 people take greater control of their financial futures. Learn more at happymoney.com. SOURCE Happy Money

PR Newswire
May 27th, 2026
Happy Money surpasses $7B in loan originations, names Tim Parsons chief risk officer

Happy Money, a US consumer finance company, has surpassed $7 billion in cumulative loan originations and appointed Tim Parsons as chief risk and analytics officer. The company has helped over 350,000 Americans consolidate credit card debt, saving an estimated $1 billion in interest. The firm grew originations nearly 400% over the past year, driven by demand for fixed-rate personal loans as Americans carry close to $1.3 trillion in credit card debt. Parsons brings over 25 years of consumer lending experience, previously serving as CEO of Sunlight Financial and holding senior positions at Citigroup. Happy Money's proprietary platform, Hive, connects borrowers with loans funded by banks, credit unions and asset managers, managing the full loan lifecycle from underwriting to servicing.