An updated edition of the July 14, 2025 article.
Fintech is rapidly transforming the financial landscape by integrating services into everyday experiences, enabling programmable money and using artificial intelligence (AI) to personalize interactions and strengthen risk management. The result is a financial ecosystem with lower costs, broader access and entirely new business models that challenge the dominance of traditional institutions.
One of the most significant shifts is the rise of embedded finance, which integrates payments, lending, insurance and investments into non-financial platforms. This not only reduces distribution costs but also enhances customer loyalty for brands. Similarly, open banking and open finance give customers control over their data, paving the way for faster onboarding, tailored products and competition based on user experience rather than sheer scale. Meanwhile, programmable money powered by stablecoins and real-time rails is reshaping treasury, payroll and cross-border transfers with instant settlement and application programming interface (API)-first workflows.
AI is emerging as the financial sector’s new operating system. Beyond analytics, AI agents now drive decision-making in underwriting, cybersecurity and compliance, enabling hyper-personalized customer journeys while cutting costs. The industrialization of AI is proving critical as fraud risks grow and regulatory expectations tighten.
Looking ahead, stablecoins, Decentralized Finance (DeFi) protocols and AI-driven services are moving from experimentation to regulated adoption, creating a financial system that is open, data-permissioned, AI-native and settlement-instant. The long-term winners of these trends will be fintechs and incumbents that master interoperability, programmable finance and trusted customer relationships at the point of need. Hence, stocks like Interactive Brokers Group, Inc. IBKR, Robinhood Markets, Inc. HOOD and SoFi Technologies, Inc. SOFI are attracting investor interest.
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Interactive Brokers is a fintech leader driven by automation, innovation and scale, evolving from electronic market making into a tech-first brokerage offering efficient, global and advanced trading tools. The company leverages proprietary systems to automate almost every aspect of the brokerage process, from trade execution and risk management to compliance and customer onboarding. This enables it to operate with minimal human intervention and significantly lower costs than traditional brokers.
IBKR offers a suite of API-driven solutions and highly customizable platforms catering to algorithmic traders, hedge funds and financial advisors. These tools reflect the company’s deep tech roots and focus on empowering clients through self-service and advanced analytics. Its infrastructure is designed for scalability and precision, which not only supports high-frequency trading and global multi-asset access but also ensures real-time margin calculations and risk controls.
Interactive Brokers’ revenue model reinforces its fintech identity. It monetizes data, interest and transaction flow instead of relying on traditional financial services upselling. By offering white-label brokerage and custody solutions to advisors and introducing brokers, the company acts as a back-end platform akin to a B2B fintech SaaS company. Its capital-light, tech-driven approach enables it to maintain high margins while scaling globally, firmly placing it in the category of modern fintech firms disrupting legacy financial institutions.
IBKR sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the company’s 2025 sales and EPS implies year-over-year growth of 8.8% and 11.4%, respectively. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
Robinhood, founded in 2013 by Vlad Tenev and Baiju Bhatt, democratized finance by providing commission-free stock trading. Launched in 2015, its app quickly gained popularity among younger investors, disrupting traditional brokerage firms. The platform became a major force in retail investing, particularly during the pandemic, when a surge in retail trading fueled its rapid growth.
Robinhood has evolved from a brokerage firm mainly trading in digital assets to a more mature and diversified entity, striving to widen its market and reach. The company operates in multiple financial sectors, offering stock and ETF trading, options trading, cryptocurrency transactions, retirement accounts and cash management services. The company has also expanded into prediction markets and launched the Robinhood Wallet for self-custodial crypto storage. These diverse offerings make it a key player in the fintech industry, attracting millions of users with its user-friendly and innovative approach. The company intends to become a one-stop shop for building generational wealth.
Robinhood plans to expand internationally, particularly in Europe and Asia, while introducing services for institutional investors. The company, sporting a Zacks Rank of 1, is developing AI-powered investment tools and exploring DeFi integration to enhance its offerings.
With these initiatives, the company will continue to reshape the financial industry by making investing more accessible and technologically advanced. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for HOOD’s 2025 sales and EPS implies year-over-year growth of 35.8% and 42.2%, respectively.
SoFi is redefining traditional finance through its app-based digital banking platform, offering a wide array of services, including lending, banking, investing and insurance. In 2024, the company surpassed 10 million members, a testament to its growing consumer appeal and the strength of its all-in-one financial ecosystem.
A major catalyst for SoFi’s growth is Galileo, its B2B financial services platform, which powers seamless payment and lending integrations for other fintechs and financial institutions. Galileo not only diversifies SoFi’s revenue streams but also cements its position in the rapidly expanding embedded finance market. Its adoption by a growing roster of high-profile clients enhances the company’s credibility and market reach.
SoFi’s land-and-expand strategy remains a core strength. By offering a broad spectrum of financial products, the company attracts new users and creates a strong cross-selling dynamic. This integrated model encourages deeper customer engagement while incentivizing partners to embed more of their offerings within SoFi’s ecosystem, ultimately driving higher lifetime value per customer.
With a strong first-mover advantage in U.S. fintech and an aggressive growth mindset, this Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) company is well-positioned for continued earnings expansion. Its increasing cross-sell capabilities and platform scalability point to a compelling long-term outlook in a fast-evolving digital finance landscape. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for SOFI’s 2025 sales and EPS implies year-over-year growth of 30.3% and 106.7%, respectively.