After a sluggish 2024, fintech stocks started to show signs of life in November. The theme was buoyed by Donald Trump’s election win, amid hopes that a crypto-friendly administration would be a boost for the industry.
A few days after being inaugurated, President Trump signed an executive order on digital assets, with a view to boosting the growth and use of blockchain technology.
“The administration is signaling its intent to modernize regulations and create a conducive environment for innovation in financial technology,” noted IBS Intelligence in a blog post published on January 28.
Here, we take a look at four companies in the fintech space.
The industry can be separated into two groups: incumbents — those that have a wealth of experience in the industry — and upstarts — younger companies that can be considered more technologically savvy. We consider two from each camp.
Incumbents
PayPal [PYPL]
Founded in 1998, the fintech powerhouse has been in a bit of a funk amid increasing competition in the digital payments space.
CEO Alex Chriss took the helm at the end of 2023 with the job of jump-starting growth. On his first earnings call in November that year, Chriss conceded that the company was “doing too many things” and needed to double down on investing in its branded products, among them Venmo.
“We set out at the beginning of 2024 to narrow our focus, improve execution and reposition the business,” said Chriss in the Q4 earnings release on February 4; improvements have been made to Venmo, and the company is on the path to long-term profitable growth.
Nevertheless, the Q4 results showed growth had slowed: total payment volume growth slipped to 7% from 15% in the year-ago-quarter. PYPL stock fell more than 10% on February 4.
Visa [V]
The payments giant, established in 1958, is the world’s biggest payments network.
At the end of January, the company announced that it agreed a partnership with Elon Musk’s X for its new money service, due to launch later this year. The partnership will allow users to connect their accounts and debit cards to X and securely transfer funds.
Visa CEO Ryan McInerney said on the Q1 2025 earnings call on January 31 that Visa is the “best, most reliable, biggest money-movement platform” that can “enable developers to quickly implement” solutions.
The company exceeded expectations in the first quarter and reported double-digit growth in cross-border volumes and process transactions. McInerney put this down to “healthy spending during the holiday season.”
Still, Visa was sued by the US Justice Department back in September and it is uncertain how Trump will handle the case. There are also suggestions that he could potentially crack down on the monopoly of legacy fintech players.
Upstarts
nCino [NCNO]
Founded in 2011, nCino offers cloud-based banking solutions. Its customers include Santander Bank [SAN] in the UK and Wells Fargo [WFC] in the US.
The company went public in July 2020 in what Bloomberg cited as one of the most successful IPOs of that year. However, the share price is down 64.58% since then.
NCNO stock was under pressure when interest rates were high, which led to fewer mortgage approvals and lower lending activity, resulting in a drop in demand for nCino’s software. The outlook for the stock has been brighter since the US Federal Reserve started cutting rates — it’s down 3.39% since the start of the year.
However, there is the possibility that rates may need to be raised again to tame inflation.
Morgan Stanley analysts noted in December that nCino’s organic subscription revenue for fiscal Q4 2025, which ended January 31, and fiscal 2026 “may be at risk” because of this. The Trump presidency and prospect of regulatory easing could be a good thing for the stock, however.
The Trump administration “could spur an acceleration in bank technology spending and M&A” as net interest income and loan growth are “set to inflect” in 2025 and 2026, the analysts wrote.
Nu Holdings [NU]
Latin America’s hottest digital bank was founded in 2013 and went public in December 2021.
A few months before its IPO, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway invested $500m in the company in a Series G funding round, which was followed by a further injection of $250m.
Buffett held approximately 86.4 million shares at the end of Q3 2024, down 19% from Q2. His stake was worth approximately $1.18bn, down 14% from the end of the previous quarter.
Buffett is known for his conservative investment strategy and preferring to sit on a huge cash pile. His decision to buy into Nu could be considered a vote of confidence for the stock, which is up 32.5% since the start of the year and 32.9% since its IPO.
The digital bank is experiencing significant growth. In January, it announced that its customer base in Mexico had surpassed 10 million for the first time, doubling in the previous 12 months.
Conclusion
Incumbents and upstarts both have a critical role to play in the fintech industry. While demand for digital banking, seamless payments and cloud-based software solutions should continue to grow, regulatory uncertainty is a near-term overhang.
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