Best of 2016: Our top 5 articles in Fintech

Piggy bank on laptop keyboard looking at the chart of the stock market.

As 2016 winds to a close, we’ve decided to take a look back at some of our most-read articles throughout the year. For the rest of the week, we’ll be highlighting the top five most popular articles in various categories across the site.

Yesterday we rounded up our top five articles about payments in 2016; today, we’re turning our gaze to that hot and ever-evolving topic, fintech. If you missed these gems when they were published, now’s your chance to read them!

 

1) The current state of fintech (infographic)

fintech industry outlookIf there’s one thing the PaymentEye audience loves, it’s a good infographic. Two of our top five most-read articles in Payments were infographics, so it comes as little surprise that our most-read piece on fintech also features an infographic.

‘The current state of fintech’, created by Savvybeaver and Call Levels, was published back in August, by which time the 2016 fintech scene had already been on a rollercoaster ride. Square’s IPO ride had been through some tough periods, Powa Technologies collapsed in the most ignominious of circumstances, and Brexit was putting big question marks over a lot of regulation and businesses’ futures.

The infographic provides a straightforward look at how fintech got to where it is today, including a breakdown of regional investment into fintech, top fintech unicorns, and the most influential women in fintech.

 

2) Backed by European fintech entrepreneurs, London payments startup Curve unveils bank card killer

CurveMany in the fintech community were curious about London start-up Curve, after it turned in December 2015 with $2m backing from high-profile European fintech figures. In February, it unveiled its product publicly for the first time, revealing how it planned to consolidate all the existing cards in your wallet into a single card.

PaymentEye’s coverage of the Curve product pitch, written by our former Managing Editor of Fintech, Sarah Gill, was one of our most-read fintech articles in 2016.

 

3) The state of fintech in 2015 (infographic)

A section of the infographic, The State of Fintech in 2015.This piece was originally published in late 2015, but it’s still one of our most-read articles in 2016. And yes, it’s another infographic!

To tie in with the 2016 Fintech Innovation Awards, this infographic was released looking back over the state of fintech in 2015 and its most important facts and figures. It still is an enduring snapshot of fintech in 2015, the biggest trends and the most important deals of the year.

 

4) iZettle CEO talks data, looking beyond payments and Stockholm fintech

iZettle made a name for itself as a mobile payments company that lets micro businesses like cafes, bakeries and salons accept card from customers, but CEO and co-founder Jacob de Geer says it doesn’t see itself as just a payments company.

In an interview with PaymentEye’s Managing Editor for Fintech, Sarah Gill, de Greer explained why data is at the core of iZettle’s business, the state of its flagship products, and what we could expect from the payments space in the year to come.

 

5) Why Stripe’s bullish on UK fintech

Stripe, the $5bn San Francisco payments firm, powers many of London’s most prominent fintech companies, from TransferWise and Nutmeg to Seedrs.

Now processing “billions” of pounds annually for “hundreds of thousands” of companies globally, Stripe continues to try and galvanise the way money moves round the world – launching a new product suite called Atlas to help startups get off the ground faster. Head of UK growth at Stripe, James Allgrove, spoke to Sarah Gill about the state of UK fintech and what lay ahead in 2016.

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