Happy Money and Arcus, two fintechs aiming to help consumers improve their financial health, have partnered on a direct credit card payoff product. The new product, which will operate within Happy Money’s Payoff Loan service, gives consumers the ability to directly pay off multiple credit cards with a single loan.
With this move, the two companies are joining a chorus of fintechs who decry the high interest rates on credit cards and urge consumers to refinance.
Digit, maker of one of the first apps to help people save by automatically sweeping modest amounts of money from checking into savings,
LendingClub, SoFi, Goldman Sachs’ Marcus, and other online personal lenders have also made paying off credit card debt their rallying cry.
U.S. credit card debt hit $1.027 trillion in March 2018, according to the Federal Reserve.
Happy Money has a financial app for consumers called Joy. It offers financial recommendations, automated savings and a mechanism for rating purchases with a smiley face emoticon for a “happy spends” or a frowny face emoticon for “sad spends.”
“Credit card interest, next to bank fees, is one of the saddest spends consumers make,” Scott Saunders, CEO and founder of Happy Money, said in a press release Thursday. “We believe in helping people live happier lives, and for many that starts with paying off credit cards. Our partnership with Arcus makes it easier for our members to pay off their credit cards, and we love that.”
Arcus connects financial institutions with merchants via a two-way protocol, which pulls data (such as payments history) and pushes data (for instance, payments) to recurring merchants.
Happy Money is integrating Arcus’ xPay application programming interface into its Payoff Loan, which will allow loan proceeds to be directly disbursed to a member’s credit facilities. This should mitigate risk associated with the loan and streamline the process for Happy Money members to pay off multiple credit cards with their Payoff Loan.
“We’re on a mission to create stronger financial health for people around the world, and by partnering with Happy Money to launch an innovative programmatic credit card payoff product, we’ve built a modern way for people to pay off their debt in a more seamless way,” Edrizio De La Cruz, CEO and co-founder of Arcus, said in the release.
