Top 20 Fintech Companies & What They Do
Fintech startups are booming, with investors scampering to join the disruption of traditional finance and get paid too.
Derived from the combination of Financial Technology, Fintech companies develop software that leverage modern technologies and infrastructural developments to boost the efficiency and market reach of financial services.
From cloud computing to artificial intelligence, Blockchain, big data, and the Internet of Things, Fintech companies are offering all types of innovative services in areas like investing, payments, lending, neo-banking, cryptos, and so on.
Following is a list of the top 20 Fintech companies and what they do.
Top 20 Fintech Companies
Rank | Name | Product | Website |
---|---|---|---|
1. | Stripe | Payment processing | stripe.com |
2. | Cashapp | Money transfers | cash.app |
3. | Robinhood | Investment app | robinhood.com |
4. | Wise | Money transfers | wise.com |
5. | BlackLine | Accounting automation | blackline.com |
6. | Revolut | Neo bank | revolut.com |
7. | M1 Finance | Personal finance app | m1.com |
8. | BharatPe | Merchant’s payment app | bharatpe.com |
9. | Klarna | Buy now, pay later | klarna.com |
10. | Rapyd | Local payments processing | rapyd.net |
11. | Binance | Cryptocurrency exchange | binance.com |
12. | Square | SME payments solution | squareup.com |
13. | Fenergo | CLM & KYC services | fenergo.com |
14. | Chime | Neo-bank | chime.com |
15. | Kreditech | Online lender | kreditech.com |
16. | Trade Republic | Online broker | traderepublic.com |
17. | Paidy | Japanese Buy now, pay later | paidy.com |
18. | HighRadius | Autonomous finance | highradius.com |
19. | Nubank | Neo-bank | nubank.com.br/en |
20. | Acorns | Investment app | acorns.com |
1. Stripe
Core Business: Payment processing
Year founded: 2010
Valuation: $74 billion
Website: stripe.com
Stripe is a SaaS payment processor that makes it easy for online businesses to process all kinds of payments. The company offers software and APIs for all company sizes, with a focus on easy integrations.
Stripe was founded in 2010 by two brothers and received its first venture capital in 2011. It made $12 billion in 2021 revenues and currently has over 7,000 employees.
In addition to simple payment integration for websites and apps, Stripe also offers anti-fraud tools, POS terminals, a merchant advance service, as well as subscription and invoicing management tools.
The Stripe infrastructure currently handles over 250 million daily API requests and up to 13K per second. It supports 135+ currencies and is available in 35+ countries.
2. Cashapp
Core Business: P2P Money transfers
Year founded: 2013
Valuation: $70+ billion
Website: cash.app
While Stripe is a B2B offering, Cashapp is a B2C app that focuses on mobile payments. It was launched in 2013 as Square Cash and currently has over 70 million users.
The platform allows users to transfer money to other users using either a phone number, an email address, or a username called a $cashtag. A user can also include a message with the transfer.
Cashapp additionally offers Bitcoin and stock trading features.
3. Robinhood
Core Business: Investment app
Year founded: 2013
Valuation: $30+ billion
Website: robinhood.com
Robinhood is an investment app known for its simple and commission-free trading of stocks, cryptocurrencies, and ETFs.
The company was founded in 2013 and currently has over 2 million users, about 4,000 employees, and $1.8 billion in 2021 revenues.
As the name implies, Robinhood was founded to make the financial markets more accessible to everyone, and not just the rich. It makes money from interests earned on cash balances and margin lending.
4. Wise
Core Business: Neo bank & Money transfers
Year founded: 2011
Valuation: $10+ billion market cap
Website: wise.com
Founded as TransferWise in 2011, Wise is an online money transfer service that aims to help users save on the high fees of traditional cross-border and currency transfers.
In addition to cost-saving transfers, Wise offers a multi-currency account, a business account, and a debit card to make it an international neo-bank that is perfect for a wide range of professionals.
The company processed over 10 million Euros in its first year of operation, with £550+ million revenues in 2021.
5. BlackLine
Core Business: Accounting automation
Year founded: 2001
Valuation: $4 billion market cap.
Website: blackline.com
BlackLine is a Fintech company that offers accounting automation for fast and reliable accounting closes.
The company was founded in 2001 by a woman whose initial goal was to help customers replace their use of Excel for accounting. It currently offers cloud-based services that automate and control a company’s entire accounting and close processes.
BlackLine is used by 300K+ accountants worldwide and nearly 4,000 companies, including half of Fortune 500 and Fortune 50 companies. It made $400+ million in revenue in 2021 and has 1,000+ employees in 11 global locations.
6. Revolut
Core Business: Neo bank
Year founded: 2015
Valuation: $30+ billion
Website: revolut.com
Founded in 2015, Revolut is a London-based Neo-bank that offers everything from current accounts to debit cards, commission-free stock trading, insurance, currency, and crypto trading.
Investing on the Revolut platform starts from as little as $1. You can split bills, easily request money, or make transfers to 200+ countries.
Revolut has 3,500+ employees with a £222 million revenue in 2020. Users can maintain accounts in GBP and EUR and the mobile app supports ATM withdrawals and withdrawals in over 100 currencies.
7. M1 Finance
Core Business: Personal finance app
Year founded: 2015
Valuation: $1.5 billion
Website: m1.com
With $6+ billion of assets under management for its 500k users, M1 is a personal finance app that aims to provide all features in one place.
The app offers commission-free investments, a flexible line of credit at just 5.75% interest for margin accounts, a free debit card with up to 1.7% APY, and a rewards program with up to 10% cashback.
8. BharatPe
Core Business: Merchant’s payments app
Year founded: 2016
Valuation: $2.8 billion
Website: bharatpe.com
Bharat is another name for India and BharatPe, as you can imagine, is designed for India. However, it is an ingenious system that has the backing of India’s Reserve Bank.
BharatQR is a QR code that accepts payments from 150+ payment apps including Google Pay and sends the money directly to the merchant’s bank account. This makes it an integration of Mastercard, Visa, and RuPay with local merchants’ bank accounts.
Accepting payments with BharatPe is completely free. Plus, the merchant additionally has access to loans, a debit/credit card, and can pay all bills from the platform. Over 5 million merchants currently use BharatPe and there are POS solutions as well.
9. Klarna
Core Business: Buy now pay later
Year founded: 2005
Valuation: $6.7 billion
Website: klarna.com
Klarna Bank AB is a Swedish Fintech company that provides online payment processing, as well as the buy now pay later method of post-purchase payments.
Consumers can buy anything online or in-store, then either pay immediately or split the payments into 4 interest-free installments. The process is smooth and comes with instant approval.
Klarna has over 4,000 employees, processes nearly half of all Swedish e-commerce sales, and processed a global total of around $80 billion in 2021. It also scored a top valuation at $45.6 billion in 2021, making it Europe’s top Fintech, however, that valuation crashed by 85% to $6.7 billion in 2022.
10. Rapyd
Core Business: Local payments processing
Year founded: 2016
Valuation: $15 billion
Website: rapyd.net
Rapyd is a local payment processor, which means it enables businesses to easily accept and send payments with the most popular local payment methods in any part of the world.
Founded in 2016, Rapyd works in 100+ countries and is available as both a UI platform and as an API for businesses. It supports 600+ payment methods, including bank transfers, cash, and e-wallets.
11. Binance
Core Business: Cryptocurrency exchange
Year founded: 2017
Valuation: N/A
Website: binance.com
With $120 billion in peak 24-hour transactions on June 15, 2022, and $7+ trillion in 2021 total transaction volume, Binance remains the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.
Binance had 1.5 million users in 2017 and a $7.5 million net income. By 2020, users grew to 21+ million, with $900 million in net income. Binance offers trading in 350+ cryptocurrencies.
Regulators have long pressured the company to keep its activities and expansion in check as the platform attracts very diverse crowds. Binance.US has already spun off and regulatory talks are underway in many countries.
12. Square
Core Business: SME payments processing
Year founded: 2009
Valuation: $110 billion market capitalization
Website: squareup.com
Square is a payment platform for small and medium-sized enterprises. It started as a simple square attachment to smartphones that lets sellers accept credit card payments using their phones as the point-of-sale system.
Today, Square has a market capitalization of over $110 billion, accepts 130+ currencies, and offers many solutions for businesses of all sizes from the US to the UK, Canada, and Japan.
13. Fenergo
Core Business: CLM & KYC services
Year founded: 2008
Valuation: $1.1 billion
Website: fenergo.com
Fenergo is an Irish Fintech company that provides client lifecycle management services and regulatory compliance solutions. The company works with hundreds of top financial institutions in the world to provide them with customized solutions.
Founded in 2008, Fenergo has grown to include asset and wealth management. The company has 1,000+ workers, and about 100 million Euros in revenue.
14. Chime
Core Business: Neo-bank
Year founded: 2012
Valuation: $25+ billion
Website: chime.com
Chime is an American neo-bank that aims to make its services as simple and free as possible. It charges no monthly fees, offers fee-free overdrafts up to $200, 1.5% APY on savings, and lets you transfer money for free.
Chime has no physical branches, but it has 12+ million customers that use the bank through their smartphone apps or the website. Still, the company made $200 million in revenue in 2019 and $950 million in 2021.
15. Kreditech
Core Business: Online lender
Year founded: 2012
Valuation: N/A
Website: kreditech.com
Kreditech is an AI-powered Fintech company from Hamburg, Germany. The company offers lending services such as consumer loans and a “credit as a service” offering for businesses to use as either a payment method or funding source.
Kreditech stands out by utilizing non-traditional methods in analyzing the creditworthiness of loan applicants. The AI system uses up to 20,000 data points such as GPS location, social media information, shopping behavior, and so on to calculate the credit score in mere seconds.
The company currently has 500 workers and is active in many European and Asian countries, including Poland, Romania, Spain, and India.
16. Trade Republic
Core Business: Online brokerage
Year founded: 2015
Valuation: 5 billion Euros
Website: traderepublic.com
Trade Republic is another German Fintech company. It offers online brokerage services and is supervised by German authorities. Trade Republic makes it easy to invest in stocks, cryptocurrencies, and ETFs with relatively low fees.
The company has over 1 million customers, with 6 billion Euros of assets under management and 400 employees.
17. Paidy
Core Business: Buy now, pay later
Year founded: 2014
Valuation: Sold for $2.7 billion
Website: paidy.com
Paidy is the pioneer of the Buy now, pay later payment solution in the Japanese market. It uses AI to determine a consumer’s creditworthiness related to specific purchases, and if good, it then guarantees payment to the merchant and lets the consumer pay in installments.
The Paidy service has 6+ million users and can work without credit cards. It was recently purchased by Paypal for $2.7 billion, mostly in cash.
18. HighRadius
Core Business: Autonomous finance
Year founded: 2006
Valuation: $3.1 billion
Website: highradius.com
HighRadius is a Software-as-a-Service company that uses AI to automate a company’s accounts receivable and treasury processes.
The company has 700+ enterprise clients and processes over $2 trillion for them annually. From credit reviews to electronic invoicing, deductions and collections, cash management, and forecasting, HighRadius helps teams to automate efficiently and accurately.
19. Nubank
Core Business: Neo-bank
Year founded: 2013
Valuation: $40+ billion
Website: nubank.com.br/en
Nubank is a Brazillian neo-bank with over 50 million users in Brazil and millions more spread across Mexico and Colombia. It is headquartered in Sao Paolo, Brazil, and had $1.69 billion in revenue in 2021, with $165 million in net income.
Nubank offers digital bank accounts, which it calls NuConta, and an international credit card for free. Then, there are extra services, such as insurance, personal loans, and investments, all managed from a single app.
A user can track all his transactions in real time on the app, and this includes blocking the card, making limit changes, and contacting customer service.
20. Acorns
Core Business: Investment app
Year founded: 2012
Valuation: $1.9 billion
Website: acorns.com
Launched in 2012 by a father and son duo, Acorns helps you to save and invest money with as low as $3 per month. Acorns makes it easy to open an investment account in about 5 minutes and start taking care of your future from your spare change.
Each time you purchase with your linked debit card, the system rounds the amount up and invests the little change in Acorns. Plus, you can also deposit money manually, if you like. The Acorns system invests in several portfolios that the user selects upon registration.
Conclusion
Reaching the end of our list of the top 20 Fintech companies out there, you can see there’s quite a lot going on in the world of financial technologies.
However, where things go from here is anyone’s guess, as many of these top Fintech companies are practically still startups.