Forbes FinTech50 showcases the 50 most impactful companies in the FinTech industry (for the US) when it comes to innovation and growth, across multiple sectors such as real estate, lending, payments, blockchain, and personal finance.  Half of the list belongs to firms operating out of the San Francisco Bay Area.

Robinhood’s Value Proposition:

Democratize the American financial system (through a commission-free service for transacting stock, ETFs, options, and cryptocurrencies).

Industry growth in FinTech has been attributed to a handful of maturing companies — but has now dramatically spread to a larger pool of firms (including startups) that have reached the level of unicorns, more than any other business sector worldwide.

There was no standard infrastructure that allowed a customer to securely authorize viewing of bank account information in real-time — until the launch of Plaid, a fintech that has become the industry’s  “super-connector” by creating a secure portal and process to exchange financial information back and forth between customer, applications, and banks.