From personal finance to payments; from banking infrastructure to fraud, scores of fintech startups across the globe have upended the previously slow moving world of financial services, changed consumer expectations, and challenged incumbents to move beyond the status quo.

If you were to pick the two most impactful fintech companies, which ones would they be? We posed that question to our friends on social media. From laying the pipes to facilitating payments, wealth management to personal finance, to new models from big technology giants — here is a compilation of their top picks from the U.S., U.K., and Africa, to China, India, Southeast Asia, and beyond:

[1] Ant Financial and Tencent: These two chinese tech giants have not only upended how we think about financial services, they have promoted financial inclusion in China where many were unbanked. They’ve done this through the use of digital applications on smartphones and transformed the country of 1.3 billion people into a near cashless society. They have each created a super app ecosystem, enabling millions of users to conduct their lives via one app, from social media, ride hailing, ecommerce, and delivery, to payment, wealth management, insurance, and much more.

[2] M-Pesa, Transferwise, PayPal, and Venmo: Broadly speaking, these apps have changed how we move money, between consumers, merchants, within and across borders. M-Pesa is a mobile phone-based money transfer service launched in 2007 by Vodafone for Safaricom and Vodacom, and has been credited for lifting 2% of Kenyan households out of poverty. Meanwhile, PayPal is one of the earliest fintech startups in the West and one of the most well-known digital wallets; and Venmo (launched in 2009 and subsequently acquired by PayPal) is one of the most popular social payment platforms, so much so that “venmo” has become a verb in everyday conversation.

[3] Acorns, Betterment, Robinhood, and Wealthfront: Robo-advisors such as Betterment and Wealthfront have driven down the cost for investment through automation, providing opportunities for new customer segments that were underserved by traditional investment firms due to lack of assets. Separately, although the concept of “rounding up a purchase” was pioneered by Bank of America, Acorns has popularized the concept of investing the spare change automatically, with its “Found Money” program that allows its 200 partner brands to kick in a percentage of purchases to a consumer’s Acorns accounts. Such micro-investing opportunities by these fintech apps allow consumers opportunities to build wealth through investing money in small amounts.

[4] Lending Club, Kabbage, Prosper, Affirm and SoFi: Although the peer-to-peer lending model has transformed quite drastically since its inception, they have nevertheless changed the way we look at credit for a variety of needs. From personal loans to small business loans, to debt consolidation to student financing to mortgages, consumers and businesses no longer have to go to the bank to apply for a loan.

[5] Square, Stripe, Klarna: It’s profitable to be the plumbing, especially in payments and data. Whether in physical stores, e-commerce, or mobile apps, enabling easier payments and adding value around transaction data for both merchants and consumers has enabled new forms of value beyond banking.

[6] Marqeta, MX and Plaid: A variety of fintechs like Plaid, Marqeta, and MX, leveraging transaction data and new capabilities like issuing cards and savings accounts, have helped startups (and banking partners) develop new ways to onboard, assess, and help customers with new services based on aggregated data and banking relationships.

We have no doubt that in a few years time, a list of newcomers will appear. The only constant in this space is change. Speaking of, why are challenger banks still called challenger banks, when many have grown to bear more and more similarities to the incumbent banks that they were trying to disrupt – and they are still fighting for meaningful market share?

Join us for this week’s episode of One Vision on iTunes and Spotify, where Arun, Bradley, and Theo talk about fintech past, present, and future, and the fintech startups that have shaped our industry.

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