Did you know? These 5 fintech companies may shape the future of money

As 2016 approaches, and Bitcoin production is set to drop significantly after the four-yearly “halving” event, with rewards falling to 12.5 BTC every ten minutes, what kind of fintech companies should we be wary of in the coming years?

The advent of blockchain technology has quickly become a major component of the FinTech revolution and is likely to be considered the most innovative concept in the industry.

When it comes to Bitcoin, most people naturally think of blockchain because its roots come from blockchain. However, blockchain is rapidly expanding beyond Bitcoin banks, financial institutions and individuals are slowly understanding the benefits it can bring.

Not only that, but as more and more people find it easier to invest in digital currencies and financial institutions such as American Express, Nasdaq and Visa are investing in startups, the world is experiencing an attitudinal shift around blockchain technology.

1. Adyen

Headquartered in Amsterdam, Adyen is a leading e-commerce payments company across six continents, serving Facebook, Uber, Airbnb, Netflix and Spotify.

In early 2016, the bitcoin-accepting company announced that it had doubled its annual revenue in 2015 and subsequently expanded its next-generation point-of-sale solution to the U.S. market.

In 2015, Adyen's annual transaction volume reached $50 billion and its revenue soared, with earnings totaling $350 million in the same year.

2. Bitnation

Run and managed by Susan Tempelhof, BitNation is the world's first digital enterprise to provide management services on its platform. With the help of blockchain technology, it aims to build a country where state governments become irrelevant.

Tempelhof told CoinTelegraph that when Bitnation started, no one had ever tried to create a digital nation powered by blockchain technology. Since then, they have worked with the Estonian government on the blockchain for marriage, world citizenship, birth certificates, land titles, issuing refugee ID cards, and notarization.

Tempelhof said:

“Now, this idea is being shared around the world, on every continent, by thousands of community residents and activists, by embassy staff, partners and allies, widely covered by mainstream media, and repeated by one another.”

The real test for Bitnation will be getting significant market adoption of the Pangea software. The company expects to release a beta version by the end of this year and prepare for an initial public offering in 2017.

3. Braintree

San Francisco-based Braintree is an online payment processor that provides an app for consumers to pay their electricity bills with one click.

After acquiring the Venmo app in 2012, Braintree was acquired by PayPal for $800 million in 2013, helping PayPal acquire back-end payment processing technology for everything from Uber to Airbnb.

Braintree currently has 500 employees worldwide, and its total payment volume is growing rapidly, reaching $50 million in 2015 alone, making Braintree an important part of PayPal's future success.

4.Chain

Founded in 2014, blockchain startup Chain works with major financial institutions to build blockchain networks. Through partnerships with companies such as Visa, Citigroup, Nasdaq, Microsoft, Google, and others, Chain aims to transform the financial services industry by digitizing financial instruments for businesses.

Chief Marketing Officer Fleur Sohtz said Chain’s software facilitates the issuance, transfer, and settlement of assets on blockchain networks. The company believes this will fundamentally improve the infrastructure of the financial services industry by allowing real-time asset transfers, increasing its security and clarity.

Sohtz said:

“When trusted institutions can issue digital assets on a secure blockchain network, financial services will be cheaper, more secure, work better together, and be available to customers around the world.”

We do this through the development of enterprise-grade software designed to improve the core infrastructure on which the financial system depends.

Together with their partners, they aim to enable any asset to quickly transfer and intelligentize data, thereby reducing costs and providing a platform for product improvements.

5. Ripple

Founded by Chris Larsen, who also co-founded Prosper and E-Loan, Ripple is a distributed financial technology that enables banks around the world to transfer funds directly and in real time.

Recently, the company announced a milestone that it has added seven financial institutions to the blockchain network, enabling banks to improve their cross-border payments through Ripple technology. These banks include Santander, UniCredit, UBS, Travel Bank, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) and ATB Financial.

CEO Chris Larsen wrote in a post on the Ripple blog that we have reached a turning point where financial institutions are moving beyond blockchain experiments and into real-world applications, which is significantly boosting the total volume of bank-to-bank transactions.

He continued:

“This is a significant step forward for the global financial system, and as the Ripple network grows, we are paving the way for new and connected business opportunities and the growing demand for real-time, high-volume, low-value global payments.”

One of Ripple’s greatest achievements since its founding was receiving the first New York Bitcoin license earlier this year, enabling it to sell and secure XRP, the native digital asset used by Ripple’s consensus ledger, to institutional investors and financial institutions in New York State.