For three years, Forbes has published its Fintech 50 list, highlighting the top private companies that are transforming finance through technology. (Here’s last year’s list.) From helping investors trade bitcoin to making loans more inclusive, these startups are reshaping the way money moves around the world.
We’re updating the list for the fourth year, a months-long process that involves a team of eight reporters and editors. We divide the work into different fintech subcategories, aim to become experts of each, speak with industry analysts, entrepreneurs and executives, evaluate hundreds of companies and ultimately select 50.
And we need your help with nominations. Please read our methodology below, and see the end of this article for the link to the nomination form.
Methodology
More than anything, we look for companies making industry-changing innovation. This often means they’re regularly releasing new products or features, or making big strategic improvements—not simply benefitting from products that look largely the same as they did a decade ago.
We don’t base the list on simple, quantitative metrics, like a minimum amount of revenue or number of customers. We also don’t have a cap for business size, but the companies we select tend to be venture-backed startups, since they’re often best equipped to drive industry change.
Other important criteria we consider:
- Strong growth over the past year, and at a faster pace than competitors
- Have a publicly live, working product
- Have significant U.S. operations
- No public companies or their subsidiaries
We define fintech companies as those that apply technology to the categories of personal finance and investing, payments, lending, insurance, real estate, trading, financial information and data, cryptocurrencies and blockchain, business services and capital markets.
Source: Forbes
Author: Jeff Kaufin