The online-lender-turned-full-service bank announced Tuesday (June 2) that it would switch its listing from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to the Nasdaq as it rebrands from LendingClub to Happen Bank.
“We were founded on the belief that technology could make lending better — and it worked,” Scott Sanborn, LendingClub’s CEO, said in a news release.
“We’ve since evolved beyond lending into a diversified digital-first bank combining deposits, lending and a capital-light marketplace model. Just as the Happen Bank brand better reflects everything we do for our members, our move to Nasdaq better reflects the technology and innovation that has always been part of our DNA.”
The release added that the company will begin trading on the Nasdaq on June 22 under the new ticker symbol HAPN.
The company announced the rebrand in April, saying the name “Happen Bank” is designed to signify action, progress and forward momentum.
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LendingClub began as a peer-to-peer lending platform in 2006 before acquiring Radius Bank in 2020. Speaking with PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster last year, Sanborn said that the bank acquisition was a critical strategic move to help consumers make what he called “smart financial decisions” and turn the company’s operations into a comprehensive financial ecosystem.
In a more recent conversation with Webster in April, Sanborn said he has been lobbying for LendingClub to change its name for 10 years, including when speaking to the board that wound up hiring him as chief executive.
“True story: literally in the interview process,” Sanborn said. “I said, ‘The name is very limiting and it is very transactional.’”
He added that the company focuses on a “very, very specific customer,” a group Sanborn calls the “motivated middle,” consumers with high income and credit scores, but still active users of credit and financial tools.
“They’re not the underserved bottom of the market and they’re not private banking clients,” the report said. “They’re people managing real cash flows, paying down debt, and the part Sanborn likes to highlight, building up an average of $19,000 in savings on the platform after working through their borrowing.”
Webster asked Sanborn whether the rebrand marked a departure from the company’s initial mission of reconfiguring retail banking.
“The kernel of what we set out to do is still there,” he said. “It now spans everything we touch.”
