Technology is having a tremendous impact on everything we do, including financial transactions. Traditional brick-and-mortar financial institutions are collaborating with technology partners to give end users fast and engaging services. Small and large cities alike are benefiting from the advent of fintech, with cities like Jersey City, New Jersey coming in with a strong showing of great fintech companies. These are the 10 best Jersey City fintech companies.
What is Fintech?
When you combine the words finance and technology, you get the term fintech. This relatively new term applies to different emerging technologies that aid financial firms or consumers to deliver or access financial services in faster and better ways than they traditionally have. It makes a huge difference when you can retrieve your financial statement on your phone instead of spending hours in the bank to get the same information.
Investors can make lending decisions based on real-time consumer metrics, and customers can do research, buy stocks and see how they perform on a gadget — just a few examples of fintech at its finest.
Fintech empowers users to take charge of their money habits and improve their financial literacy. Some good examples of fintech are mobile banking, digital lending and credit, insurance, trading, cryptocurrency and blockchain.
How Benzinga Rated the Best Fintechs
The fintech industry is growing in leaps and bounds mainly because it is a field that accommodates small players. This allows them to compete with established banks and financial institutions.
In fintech, it is not about who has been there longest but who can deliver the fastest and most efficiently. It’s also about addressing the ever-fluctuating needs of customers. Fintechs do not offer one-size-fits all solutions. Everything is targeted and well calculated to fill the gaps left by the big names. This means that fintech services usually are affordable and accessible.
The best fintechs not only adhere to government regulations, they also are very particular when it comes to trends. The financial technology sector is continuously evolving as more traditional financial institutions opt for innovative solutions. Some of the most critical trends that a fintech should focus on are:
- Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning: according to research, AI will help financial institutions reduce costs by 22% by 2023. This is because AI and machine learning help analyze large data blocks to make timely and informed decisions. The use of advanced algorithms helps mitigate fraudulent activities.
- Microservices: Interconnected modular blocks and decentralized data management are the basis of most fintech apps. This is what adds responsiveness for online payments and money-lending apps. It makes the apps easy to use and easy to maintain.
- Blockchain: Blockchain technology encourages data privacy and transparency. These 2 elements are critical when it comes to establishing trust between users and service providers.
- Big Data: Big Data is what allows companies to turn raw data into useful information about customer habits. It is only through Big Data that effective marketing strategies are developed and executed.
This list consists of the best fintechs in Jersey City that disrupt and innovate while solving problems.
1. Best SaaS Wealth-Management Fintech: Wealthsqope by Refinitiv, founded 2014
A software as a service (SaaS) wealth-management provider for financial firms, Wealthsqope from Refinitiv offers compartmentalized modules. These modules include money movement, personal portfolio management, account management, investment data and trading. The services can be customized according to the needs of the customer or institution. It is one of the largest providers of financial markets data and infrastructure globally.
The company depends on richer, leaner and more data that is readily available to use machine learning and AI. This is what allows its customers to gain greater insight, which fuels rapid innovation that navigates change successfully.
2. Best Healthcare Fintech: Zelis, founded 2016
When it comes to fintechs in healthcare, Zelis is the company. This platform provides payment optimization solutions and offers claims cost management. Zelis also delivers claims communications for payers, electronic payments, network solutions, network analytics, pay integrity and compensation for consumers and healthcare providers.
3. Best Portfolio Construction and Asset Allocation Advisers fintech: Active Allocator, Founded 2015
Active Allocator is an online tool for financial advisers enabling portfolio construction and asset allocation. Through this platform, advisers can integrate liquid, alternative and traditional assets into a single portfolio. Advisers also are able to analyze past performance, accommodate individual investor preferences and even compare potential investments.
4. Best Innovative Occupancy Fintech: Leap, founded 2018
Leap, a high-growth fintech, specializes in enabling underqualified renters to gain access to sought-after apartments by acting as the lease cosigner. Leap leaps into action because promising applications usually are turned down because of student status, bad credit ratings or other factors that weaken the renter’s ability to pay.
Leap uses its proprietary underwriting tools to do a quick but thorough vetting of potential rental applicants. This, in turn, expands the landlord's qualified tenant pool. This is important this is because most landlord portfolios have a rental loss of 5% to 10%. Leap helps landlords get qualified tenants while helping qualified people get better apartments. Applications take 4 minutes to complete and are usually approved in 30 minutes.
5. Best Bond Trading Fintech: OpenDoor, founded 2015
OpenDoor is a bond-trading platform. Here, Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) and off-the-run Treasuries get liquidated. The liquidation is conducted on an anonymous, proprietary trading platform. Users gain unrestricted access to the browser-based platform. Hedge funds, central banks, primary dealers, trading firms and asset managers will find OpenDoor quite valuable.
6. Best Financial Wellness Fintech: FlexWage, founded 2009
The unbanked and underbanked now have a solution in the form of FlexWage. It is a fintech company whose sole aim is to improve financial access and well-being to the community’s workers and populations who don’t have access to quality financial services. Through WageBank, FlexWage connects to payroll systems to give employees access to accrued wages, helping to do away with financial and pay issues.
7. Best Trade and Supply Fintech: Tallyx, founded 2018
Tallyx Inc. is a company focused on building a decentralized trade and supply-chain finance platform. The company uses AI and blockchain technology to mitigate trade fraud, data breaches, financial supply-chain inefficiency and provide access to working capital to 85% of unserved suppliers.
Tallyx offers financiers and suppliers, supply-chain smart contracting and decentralized client onboarding. It’s a company that invented a non-fungible token for fractional ownership, the world's first token standard for trade and supply-chain finance and trade obligation protocol.
8. Best Tax Prep Fintech: Refundo, founded 2011
Refundo is a cloud technology-backed tax refund processing platform. It is a platform built for professional tax preparers who are electronic return organizers (EROs). This platform offers services that enable EROs to get payment from client refunds and helps taxpayers get their refunds sonner than the typical 2 to 3 weeks a check mailed from the IRS takes. The Refundi proprietary technology works smoothly with all the major tax preparation software.
9. Best Data Fintech: Pendo Systems, founded 2007
Pendo Systems is a platform that enhances data transparency. It offers this service to financial institutions all over the world. The system makes use of a proprietary algorithm that automatically indexes and classifies data to make it easily accessible and searchable. This is what unlocks the insights and values hidden in critical documents. At Pendo, turning data into information that you can extract value from is the goal. Therefore, the ability to simplify retrieval and access to millions of documents can be measured in money form.
10. Best Investment Research Fintech: InsiderScore, founded 2004
InsiderScore is a global giant when it comes to stock buyback research, institutional ownership, insider trading and analytics. Through the platform, investors are able to monitor existing holdings and get investment ideas. InsiderScore works with some of the biggest institutional money managers, including FactSet, Bloomberg and Capital IQ. Being featured in The Wall Street Journal or CNBC is nothing new for InsiderScore.
Invest in the Best Fintechs in Jersey City
With it’s close proximity to New York City, fintechs in Jersey City have plenty of great talent to choose from. Even though there are a few challenges, the rapid changes in technology and client expectations should not be viewed as a hindrance but as a way of engaging consistent innovation.
Ready to grow with the companies in Jersey City? Now that you know the best fintechs in Jersey City, you can invest in fintech today. And be sure to check out this year’s Benzinga Fintech Awards for more great companies.