10 Best Fintech Companies and Stocks in 2021

Published on April 8, 2021 at 10:47 am by Usman Kabir in Hedge Funds, Lists, News

In this article we are going to discuss the top 10 best fintech companies and stocks in 2021. You can skip our detailed analysis of the trends in the fintech space and jump to the Top 5 Fintech Companies and Stocks in 2021.

Financial technology is the driving force behind the rapid digitization of the world. Fusing the concept of financial services with new technology, fintech companies aim to improve traditional methods of moving money around by offering lower costs, time efficiency and improved access for businesses and consumers to manage their finances. For example, the term fintech can describe many processes, such as online money transfers, mobile payments, loan management, or investments, all done digitally without the need for middlemen.

Naturally, fintech is often described as a disruptor in the finance world. The financial services once recognized as the domains of banks, individual salesmen and desktop computers are now available on mobile phones with a single touch of the finger. Like other industries where digitization has led to serious introspection, finance appears to be struggling over how to deal with the new phenomenon. One thing, though, stands out in the chaos. Fintech has changed the world, for better or for worse, and it is time that traditional power centres realized this.

Best FinTech Stocks to Buy

According to International Data Corporation, an American intelligence firm, more than 60% of the world GDP will be digital within the next two years. As such, growth in the industry for any business, including the business of finance, will be tied to digital offerings and relationships. Some regions of the world seem to be adopting better to the change than others. Surprisingly, a study into the fintech universe by Findexable, a fintech research firm, reveals that commercial power is no longer tied to financial power in a digital world.

The study highlights how fintech hubs are increasingly not in what one would assume are the traditional finance capitals of the world, like London, Paris, or New York, but in more developing economies like Brazil and India. The implications of this seem to be motivating big banks and finance firms to move towards digitization, but Findexable has cautioned that fintech hubs can only be developed by governments willing to maneuver policy, harvest local talent pools, and allow digital businesses to operate freely in the market.

Regulation has often been a thorny issue in the fintech world, as in any other industry, with most major players viewing it with suspicion and terming it bad for business. However, unregulated digital markets have the power to wreak havoc, as recent stock market fluctuations based on meme wars have exhibited. Fintech is also susceptible to hacking, which often leaves users vulnerable not only because their money might be stolen but their data as well. All these considerations need to be taken into account to develop a sound policy on fintech.

Overall, analysts are bullish on the fintech industry. But it remains vitally important for investors to do research before betting their money. The entire hedge fund industry is feeling the reverberations of the changing financial landscape. Its reputation has been tarnished in the last decade, during which its hedged returns couldn’t keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. On the other hand, Insider Monkey’s research was able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 124 percentage points since March 2017. Between March 2017 and February 26th 2021 our monthly newsletter’s stock picks returned 197.2%, vs. 72.4% for the SPY. Our stock picks outperformed the market by more than 124 percentage points (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that significantly underperformed the market. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 and they lost 13% through November 16th. That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to. You can subscribe to our free newsletter on our homepage to receive our stories in your inbox.

Photo by Edi Kurniawan on Unsplash

With this context in mind, here is a look at the top 10 best fintech companies and stock options in 2021 that are expected to pay good dividends to investors this year.

10. Stripe

Stripe is a San Francisco-based software company that offers companies of all different sizes the ability to accept digital payments. It is 10th on our list of top 10 best fintech companies and stocks in 2021. The company develops payment processing mechanisms for websites and mobile applications of businesses. The company was founded by John Collison and Patrick Collison in 2010. The company also develops tools that block fraudulent transactions in order to provide businesses with a layer of security when handling payments. Stripe sometimes offers loans and credit cards to businesses as well.

Stripe does business with leading firms in the world including Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), Slack Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: WORK), and DoorDash, Inc. (NYSE: DASH). Last month, the company announced that it had raised more than $600 million in its latest fundraising. The announcement increased the valuation of the startup to $95 billion, nearly tripling from what it was at that time last year. It also made Stripe the most valuable US-based startup. The company said it would invest the money in European operations, especially at the office of the company in Irish capital Dublin.

9. PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: PYPL)

PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: PYPL) is a California-based online payments firm that was founded by Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, and Luke Nosek in December 1998 as Confinity. It is 9th on our list of top 10 best fintech companies and stocks in 2021. The company later rebranded itself as PayPal. PayPal operates in a majority of countries that accept internet-based money transfers. PayPal went public in 2002 and was later purchased by e-commerce giant eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY). In 2014, eBay made PayPal a separately traded company. PayPal serves as an electronic alternative to cheques, money orders and cash.

PayPal has partnerships with many major companies around the world, including Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (NASDAQ: ANF), Uber Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: UBER), Accenture plc (NYSE: ACN), and Walmart Inc. (NYSE: WMT). Last month, PayPal announced that it had launched a new feature that would allow users to checkout with cryptocurrency. The move had been predicted by global investment banking firm Evercore earlier this year which said that PayPal was positioning itself for the arrival of a central digital currency.

8. Square, Inc. (NYSE: SQ)

Square, Inc. (NYSE: SQ) is a San Francisco-based digital payments and financial services company that was founded by Jack Dorsey and Jim McKelvey in 2009. It is 8th on our list of top 10 best fintech companies and stocks in 2021. The firm has marketed many products over the years, including the Square Reader, a device that accepted credit card payments by connecting to a smartphone through the audio jack; the Square Stand, a device that turned the Apple iPad into a point of sale system for retail transactions; and the Square Register, an actual point of sale system for small businesses that accepted card payments.

The company has a market cap of over $104 billion and reported a revenue of more than $9.5 billion in December 2020. The shares of the financial service firm have been on the rise since Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, an investment banking firm, upgraded the stock of the company in late March to Outperform from Market Perform. Sanjay Sakhrani, a KBW analyst, said that the company offered a huge opportunity to drive incremental growth and increase engagement. The investment firm set a price target of $250 for Square.

7. Ally Financial Inc. (NYSE: ALLY)

Ally Financial Inc. (NYSE: ALLY) is a Michigan-based financial services company that was founded by General Motors Company (NYSE: GM) in 1919. It is 7th on our list of top 10 best fintech companies and stocks in 2021. Although the company provides various services such as car financing via direct banks, it is also popular because of an electronic trading platform that has more than 350,000 users. The company uses the platform as an online market for auctions of cars. Since 2000, the company has sold more than 5 million vehicles through the platform, including more than 250,000 in 2019.

The market cap of the firm is $17.5 billion and it posted more than $6 billion in profits in December 2020. The company’s stocks performed well during the pandemic since the online-only bank nature of its business helped customers stuck at their homes. The firm is aiming to replicate its success in the auto industry with expansion plans into the mortgage market to meet growth targets. Ally Financial is one of the best performing fintech stocks to buy for 2021 as it is expected to give handsome returns to investors.

6. Wise

Wise, formerly known as Transferwise, is a London-based financial technology firm that was founded by Kristo Käärmann and Taavet Hinrikus in 2011. It is 6th on our list of top 10 best fintech companies and stocks in 2021. Earlier this year, the company changed its name to Wise from Transferwise to reflect a changing business priority that had until then focused on international money transfers. The company is planning to go public later this year and has appointed investment firms Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley as joint partners in this endeavor. The firm has been valued at $5 billion by private investors.

So far, the company has raised more than $1 billion in funding. As the leading international money transfer choice, it moves more than $5 billion every month. The company offers users the ability to move funds from one bank to another on low rate exchanges. It also lets users make an account that holds, accepts and moves money in many different international currencies. It has also launched its own debit card to go along with the account.

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