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| 10 neue Fintech-Unternehmen machen Banking im Jahr 2022 zugänglicher |
Computer, Smartphones und Internettechnologien entwickeln sich weiterhin rasant weiter. Es sollte nicht überraschen, dass die Finanzbranche von diesen Fortschritten stark betroffen ist. Die Zeiten, in denen Sie Ihren Gehaltsscheck in Papierform zu Ihrer örtlichen Bankfiliale bringen mussten, um ihn auf Ihr Konto einzuzahlen, sind vorbei. Heutzutage sieht man sogar selten, dass jemand mit Bargeld bezahlt. Es ist fast wie ein Relikt aus einer vergessenen Zeit, wenn jemand ein Bündel Geldscheine hervorholt, um eine Transaktion abzuschließen.
Überall entstehen neue Online-Finanzunternehmen. Sie haben sogar einen neuen Branchenbegriff hervorgebracht – „Fintech“. Das ist die Abkürzung für Finanztechnologie, falls Sie sich fragen. Diese Fintech-Unternehmen versuchen, das Bankwesen zu revolutionieren, indem sie es einfacher, erschwinglicher und für jedermann zugänglicher machen. Von einfachen Girokonten bis hin zu Geldanlagen oder Hypotheken sind Sie nicht mehr auf die traditionellen Großbanken angewiesen. Sie haben Möglichkeiten!
Hier sind zehn neue Fintech-Unternehmen, die versuchen, die alte Bankenbranche mit modernster Software und Ideen zu revolutionieren. Und wir versprechen, dass sie nicht alle mit Bitcoin oder Kryptowährungen zu tun haben. Ehrlich.
Brigit
Geschätzter Wert: 600 Millionen US-Dollar
Brigit ist eine Finanz-App, aber mit einer Besonderheit. Ziel ist es, den Amerikanern Finanzkompetenzen zu vermitteln, aber auch dazu beizutragen, Ihre Kreditwürdigkeit zu verbessern und teure Überziehungsgebühren zu vermeiden. Die App, die es sowohl in einer kostenlosen als auch in einer kostenpflichtigen Abonnementversion gibt, ist mit dem Bankkonto eines Benutzers verknüpft. Basierend auf ihren Cashflow-Gewohnheiten gewährt ihnen ein Algorithmus automatisch ein zinsloses Darlehen von bis zu 250 US-Dollar. Der Kredit kann auch zur Vorbeugung von Überziehungssituationen genutzt werden.
Für eine schnelle Rückzahlung ist das Darlehen mit vorab festgelegten Konditionen ausgestattet. Die gute Nachricht ist, dass diese Kleinkredite (und ihre Rückzahlungen) den großen Kreditauskunfteien gemeldet werden. Nach Angaben des Unternehmens selbst kann die Nutzung von Brigit Ihre Kreditwürdigkeit um bis zu 60 Punkte steigern. Der einzige Nachteil besteht darin, dass Sie 9,99 US-Dollar pro Monat zahlen müssen, um Zugang zu diesen Krediten oder zum Überziehungsschutz zu erhalten. Die kostenlose Version bietet nur Finanzberatung.
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| Brigit |
Chipper Cash
Estimated Valuation: $2.2 billion
The ease of making financial transactions in the United States is almost taken for granted. In many other parts of the world, though, it can be difficult to send and receive money. Chipper Cash aims to bridge that gap. Founded by Ham Serunjogi and Maijid Moujaled, from Uganda and Ghana, respectively, the app cuts through some of the cross-border red tape.
Chipper allows users from the U.S., U.K., and five African countries (so far) to pay bills and make cross-border transactions. They also have the ability to buy, transfer, and sell Bitcoin. For those trying to send money back to their families in Africa, converting to crypto first has actually become a useful tactic to avoid their money being lost to corruption or high fees. Chipper earns their revenue through foreign exchange fees and crypto brokerage commissions.
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| Chipper Cash |
Clearco
Estimated Valuation: $2 billion
Clearco isn’t targeting run of the mill consumer banking customers. This Canadian-founded platform aims to revolutionize the investment and funding of startups. Clearco focuses on providing funds to e-commerce startups. To date, they have distributed more than $3.2 billion in funding to more than 7,000 different startups. The investments typically range from $10,000 to $2 million.
The company uses “blind funding” algorithms to generate fast term sheets and linked software to track key performance metrics of the companies they invest in. By being “blind”, Clearco claims they the companies they fund are nine times more racially diverse and 25 times more likely to have female founders than a typical venture capital company.
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| Clearco |
Column
Estimated Value: N/A
Before we talk about column, we have to back up slightly. You know all those new-age, digital, online-only banks that you see advertised to young people? Well, they aren’t really banks. Not in the traditional sense, anyway. They are just software platforms, who need to partner with actual certified banks behind the scenes in order to make their businesses work.
Column wants to be that bank. They are a federally chartered bank, aiming to replace the “patchwork” of other financial institutions that back all these new fintech online bank apps. Column has a single national branch location, located in Chico, California. It already has $300 million in deposits, and growing all the time.
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| Column |
Creative Juice
Estimated Value: $75 to $100 million
Creative Juice is a special financial startup with an extremely niche target market. In short, they exist solely to benefit online creators. Yes, we’re talking YouTube stars, famous Twitch streamers, or major TikTok personalities. Their digital banking app is a perfect fit for those who earn their living by putting content out into the online ether.
If you’re an up-and-coming online star, Creative Juice is still for you. They offer investment dollars to help you grow your audience, from $25,000 up to $500,000 investments. In exchange, you have to give up a percentage of your future revenue. Some of the company’s original backers are YouTube sensation MrBeast, Twitch co-founder Justin Kan, and former NFL star Larry Fitzgerald.
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| Creative Juice |
GoodLeap
Estimated Value: $12 billion
Headquartered in Roseville, California, GoodLeap caters to homeowners looking to take out loans in order to fund major green home improvement projects. They have partnered with various banks, including Goldman Sachs, to dish out more than $13 billion in loans almost 400,000 homeowners so far.
Originally, GoodLeap was only for homeowners who wanted to install solar panels, but lacked the up front money. Now they have dozens of different green categories you can get a loan for. Battery backup storage? Yep. New energy efficient windows? Sure. Special lawn turf that saves money on watering? You bet. If you want to make your home a bit more environmentally friendly, check out GoodLeap.
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| GoodLeap |
Grow Credit
Estimated Value: $26 million
Grow Credit is, in a totally not surprising twist at all, a company designed to help customers grow their credit. Since your credit score factors into a lot of aspects of your life — some of which you might not expect — keeping a high credit score is always a good idea. Grow Credit does this by issuing “virtual” Mastercards to those with bad credit (or no credit history at all).
This virtual card charges no interest, but typically comes with a small monthly service charge. Grow Credit advises customers to add their monthly DisneyPlus or Apple Music charges to the card, giving it a small amount of activity. The service also links the virtual card to the user’s bank account, ensuring automatic on-time payments are made. The whole process can boost your credit score up to 50 points, according to the company’s website.
In the future, Grow says they plan to offer traditional credit cards that customers can “graduate” to after improving their creditworthiness.
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| Grow Credit |
Melio and Mercury
Estimated Value: $4 billion (Melio) and $1.62 billion (Mercury)
These are actually two totally different companies. However, since their services overlap a lot, we are combining them together in this one section. In short, both Melio and Mercury are digital banking solutions aimed at small businesses and startups.
Let’s start with Melio. They target small Mom and Pop vendors who aren’t particularly financially savvy. No worries, though, because Melio makes it easy for those small businesses to pay bills, accept payment, and pay employees.
Mercury is a bit more full-featured, offering no-fee checking and savings account for startups and small businesses. They have all the things you might want — debit cards, wire transfers, and foreign currency exchange.
Both companies are great alternatives to the traditional banks, especially for small businesses trying to save money on banking fees.
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| Melio and Mercury |
Morty
Estimated Value: $150 million
You know those sites that aggregate a bunch of car or home insurance quotes for you? Morty is that, but for mortgages. You fill in your details and Morty will find you potential mortgage offers from a range of lenders. It’s a great way to compare offers and do some competitive shopping around.
If you pick one of Morty’s offers, the terms lock-in as the software guides you through the rest of the process. Much like traditional mortgage brokers, Morty charges lenders a small fee once the loan closes. They’ve processed more than $1.2 billion loans to date and had $3 million in revenue in 2021 alone.
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| Morty |
Pipe
Estimated Value: $2 billion
Pipe is a specialized trading platform that allows certain businesses to raise money. The platform sells recurring revenue streams (ie, monthly or annual fees and subscriptions) to institutional investors. Then those revenue steams are anonymized by Pipe, and sold based on risk profiles.
Sellers have already raised billions of dollars using Pipe since it debuted in 2020. The average return for investors is in the 4-to-8% range. In 2021, Pipe expanded outside of the U.S. and started offering services in the U.K.
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| Pipe |
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