That’s right, only eight fintech firms remain in the Money Madness tournament!
It’s time for head-to-head match ups in each of the 4 categories.
Payments
After knocking out #1 seeded Stripe, Yapstone hopes that its full stack payment processing prowess is enough to bring down P2P powerhouse Venmo. It’s an interesting match up of a complete payment platform for large vertical markets and marketplaces against a focused, easy-to-use person-to-person payment app. Coming at it from different ends of the payments spectrum, these companies represent the breadth of the payment industry.
Lending
Student loan refinancing rules the day in our Lending conference, with SoFi facing off against Earnest. It’s indicative of the how many student loans are out there that these two companies are not only leading in the tournament, but are both experiencing such phenomenal growth. With their roots in student loan refi, both companies have quickly expanded into other areas like personal loans for Earnest and personal loans, mortgage and wealth management for SoFi.
Personal Finance
King of the hill Credit Karma is trying to stave off the surging Prism. Similar to the diversity of models in the Payments conference, the very different approaches of the PFM contenders demonstrates how many different approaches there are to helping people manage their personal finances. Credit Karma has shown its ability to turn information into action as it leverages its credit reporting service to turn its users on to the right financial products for them. Meanwhile, Prism is a handy app that helps individuals quickly and securely view and pay all of their bills. This match-up should prove interesting as these companies tackle very different pieces of personal financial management.
Too Cool to Categorize
Because there were really no limits to who was selected, this is our favorite category just for the diversity of companies included. The top two “Too Cool” contenders are small business financing experts Nav and spare change investment wunderkind Acorns. The advancement of Nav and Credit Karma into the Exceptional Eight shows just how important credit scoring has become in understanding financial health, as both companies help their users understand their business (Nav) and personal (Credit Karma) credit scores and find the right financial products and advice. Acorns is especially interesting in its own right, as it takes the model made popular by Bank of America with its “Keep the Change” savings program and applies it to robo-investing. The “Too Cool” moniker is fitting for these two challengers..
Cast your vote for your favorites today. This round concludes on March 28th at 8:00 PM EST. Go here to vote now: www.FintechMoneyMadness.com
