Best Payment Apps for Personal & Professional Use

Not long ago, the idea that a financial customer preferred to never speak with a human being seemed questionable. But today, both tech-savvy startups and traditional financial institutions have fully embraced it. We’re talking about fintech, which has rapidly integrated into daily life—so much so that a trip to the bank, for example, can feel like going to the principal’s office. Fintech apps are innovating at such an unprecedented pace that it can be hard to keep up with. Advancing tech in day-to-day finance means applying everything from cloud-based computing to AI to create increasingly digital financial experiences. With consumers hungry for digital options, it’s become a very crowded marketplace. As the pioneering mind behind Apple once said, “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” We’re looking for the cut above the rest. Not every fintech app can stand out as one that transforms user experiences and helps improve people’s lives (the kind of fintech app we like to build). In this article, we’ve selected the top fintech apps we admire. In no particular order, here’s the list.   Best Fintech App for Banking & Investment: Betterment Betterment is the biggest independent digital investment advisor in the US and a smart money manager. Betterment serves one purpose: to help you make the most of your money. A low-cost, automated investment service combined with an easy-to-use interface, Betterment’s mission is to make investing accessible to everyone. And while Betterment serves every financial need from checking to investing, cash reserve, and retirement, key features we admire are its socially responsible investment capabilities. Do you want to impact climate change or social issues? With Betterment, you choose how your money will make an impact. Portfolios make it easy for you to invest in alignment with your values. You can support companies that:  Impact climate change through lower carbon emissions and green projects. Impact society through working toward minority empowerment ($NACP) and gender diversity ($SHE). Impact the world more broadly through exchange-traded funds that consider all environmental, social, and corporate governance elements like lower carbon emissions, ethical labor management, and greater board diversity. In AltFi’s interview with Betterment CEO Sarah Levy, Levy says, “Fintech is well known for being more male and more white.” Clearly, Betterment is making inroads with the launch of an industry-wide Fintech Equality Coalition addressing that and its own platform’s portfolios targeted toward minority empowerment and gender diversity.   Best Fintech App for Real Estate: inHere For decades, the world of real estate has adhered to a rather unchanging script when it comes to home buying. But, as we’ve always believed at InspiringApps, innovation knows no bounds, and that’s precisely where inHere steps in. Say hello to the inHere platform—a visionary solution that encompasses Start inHere, the inHere mobile app and portal, Notarize inHere, and Close inHere. These seamless apps afford users a complete overhaul of the real estate experience right from the moment a transaction is set in motion until the final closure. According to a press release by FNF CEO Randy Quirk, “Real estate professionals and consumers are ready to embrace change in the closing process, but there hasn’t been a large enough coordinated effort to deliver on the customer’s desire for change or to capitalize on the change itself.” And here, inHere emerges as the leader, redefining transparency, efficiency, and security in the world of real estate. “The inHere Experience Platform overcomes these hurdles and provides the necessary scale needed for real change to occur,” said Quirk. It’s not just about a transaction—it’s about an experience, an encounter that’s worthy of the modern era. So much so that inHere was nominated as an honorable mention in the prestigious 2023 Innovation by Design Awards by Fast Company.   Best Fintech App for Insurance: Lemonade If the insurance industry was ripe for disruption, Lemonade found the fruit. Powered by tech and driven by social good, Lemonade offers many flavors of insurance that you can buy using bots—not brokers. Anyone can be insured, including rentals, homes, cars, pets, and people (term life). Want to reverse the traditional insurance model? Lemonade is an insurer that treats your money like it’s yours. Eliminating the middle man and using a flat-fee model means that after paying claims, Lemonade can give back to causes you care about. How does Lemonade’s giveback program work? When you get a Lemonade policy, you choose a nonprofit you care about. On an annual basis, Lemonade gives back up to 40% of that unclaimed money from policyholders who chose that cause to the nonprofit. According to Lemonade, in 2021, the giveback totaled over $2 million. Lemonade is a Public Benefit Corporation and a Certified B-Corp. Award-winning Lemonade has been named Best Renters Insurance by Forbes for hard-to-find coverage.   Best Fintech App for HR: Catch Benefits The concept of how we work is changing with the rise of the gig economy, and yet the needs of gig workers are often overlooked. Catch Benefits aims to change that by leveraging the power of fintech to support human resources. Catch Benefits sells health insurance, retirement savings plans, and tax withholding directly to freelancers and contractors or anyone who is uncovered. The Catch Benefits app helps gig workers with withholding taxes, retirement planning, and health insurance, providing expert advice no matter how or how much income workers earn. Because of the gap in health insurance for gig workers, we’re most impressed by this feature of the app. Catch Benefits contains health explorers that let gig workers compare plans from insurers. It’s the first of its kind to focus so heavily on freelancer benefits. In speaking with Tearsheet, CEO Kristen Anderson says, “Our users tend to have complex income stories, and need an ability to automate their taxes, get their retirement in order, and most importantly, access that high quality health insurance that so many of us depend on here.”   Best Fintech App for Families: Goalsetter If parents are banking digitally, where are their children learning to balance a checkbook? Wealth is built up over generations, and so building the right habits early is an important lesson. Goalsetter is a financial literacy and planning platform, savings account, and debit card designed for users of all ages. The app’s mission is to get every family in America saving. Goalsetter provides families with tools to build up savings, setting it apart from the average saving app and offering more than a debit card designed for teens. While the kid in all of us might groan to think we’d need to complete a financial quiz to get our allowance, Goalsetter’s educational features are centered around memes and gifs that keep kids entertained as they learn. And the social saving features mean that everyone in the family can contribute to big goals—parents and extended family can auto-save, too. Given all these great features, it’s not surprising that Goalsetter was a 2022 winner of the FinTech Breakthrough Award for “Best Personal Financial product.”   Best Fintech App for Women: Ellevest Gender and equality are often discussed when it comes to pay. But how does gender impact investing? Using the latest fintech, the innovative Ellevest became the No. 1 investment app for women by recognizing gender in its investment algorithm. Ellevest is a digital investment platform designed specifically for women. It creates customized investing plans based on personal goals, such as early retirement or starting a business. The app takes into account what impacts and matters to women, like longer life expectancy and salary peaks earlier in their careers. According to Wallstreet veteran CEO Sally Krawcheck, in an interview with CNBC, “Whereas men feel empowered when it comes to money, women feel disempowered and feel scarcity and shame.” It’s humbling to think fintech can change that. At InspiringApps, we applaud apps that empower others: apps like Ellevest. Concluding Thoughts: The Best Fintech Apps So many fintech apps are among the best: apps like Acorns, Chime, Revolut, Mint, and Robinhood are popular and well-loved. We looked for apps we admire for their transformative impact and ability to do good in the marketplace. In fintech today, this could be a much longer list. At InspiringApps, we also specialize in apps that transform and make an impact. Are you ready to build the next best fintech app? Check out our other resources on fintech below: Fintech & Mobile App Development App Integration for a Better Fintech App

To attract customers to your digital product or platform, you’ll need to provide an experience that stands out. At a minimum, customers have baseline expectations and experiences you need to keep up with—but they’re looking for more than that. Technologies that provide personalized data experiences and real-life value will be the ones to delight companies and users alike. Owning your customer’s digital experience means understanding your user’s journey from beginning to end. By anticipating every touchpoint your user experiences, you can craft solutions that meet their needs at the right moment. Ultimately, digital products that do so will find loyal customers that keep on coming back. Here are some considerations you may stay aware of along the user’s journey as you create your customer’s digital experience. Seamless, Frictionless UX & UI Users expect a smooth and seamless digital experience from start to finish. That means everything from anticipating and displaying the content they need to automatically unlocking the door they’re walking up to—all without a glitch. One of the quickest ways to get your customers to thank you is by providing them with a seamless payment experience. Digital and contactless payment tools like Venmo, Cash App, Apple Pay, and Google Pay are easy options that users rate highly. These tools enable a connected user experience for quick payment within your app. Making it easy to pay is a win-win for everyone from a user experience and user interface perspective. Users are hungry for one-stop shopping enabled by the digital marketplace, and frictionless payments connect to your users’ digital wallets. An ever-growing Internet of Things (IoT) opens up even more opportunities to influence your customer through a seamless experience. For example, consider how an app like Turo changes its customer’s experience of arriving at the airport in a new city. Turo’s customers can skip the rental counter and walk right out to their weekend ride with a digital key, eliminating hassle on their weekend getaway. Time saved delivers real-life value to your user, and many will repeat the experience if it goes smoothly the first time. Data/System Integrations Better insights drive better business decisions. App and system integrations enable interoperability to help guide business operations and provide the right solutions needed in today’s market. Integrations can be a lot more exciting than you’d imagine at first glance. Here are two significant ways to use data integrations to help your customers: Bring people and data together, so your customers feel connected to what matters most. Then, you can serve up their favorite products and content on the platforms where they already work and play.  Customize your customers’ experience to their set preferences to experience more comfort and continuity in their daily lives. For example, you can hide technical complexity and offer a seamless experience.  Using this combination of approaches, you can deliver a level of personalization to your customers that feels authentic and unique to them. Imagine getting home and having the heat turned to the right setting, the lights dimmed to your preference, and your favorite playlist queued. This hyperconnected experience is only possible when devices and systems share data and “talk” behind the scenes—and the result is significant to the user. Provide Tools To Solve the Problem Owning your customer’s experience involves using experience-driven thought to anticipate your user's needs and behaviors at every step of their customer journey. Innovative companies are taking advantage of artificial intelligence (AI) and other technologies to anticipate the needs of their users and provide the data, insights, and tools they need to solve the problems they encounter. This approach benefits both sides, as customers are able to more quickly get to their solution, and companies reduce their customer service costs. Examples include interactive chatbots and virtual assistants. AI can answer a question, point you to resources, schedule a meeting, and do much more in these instances. Data itself is a crucial tool we provide users in many of the apps we create. For example, we’ve created products that allow users tools and insight into their home mortgages, enabling them to make the data-driven decisions that are best for them. By informing users of their current interest rate and when market interest rates are down, we provide timely refinancing suggestions and the tools to get it done within the product. We also developed a marketing platform that enables prominent technology vendors to arm their channel partners with tools to manage marketing campaigns with automated personalized content and analytics. Ultimately, we help consumers save money while increasing their brand loyalty and the likelihood they’ll become trusting, repeat customers.  Set the Stage for Loyalty & Repeat Business Personalized experiences set the stage for loyalty and repeat business. The end of the user journey should feed into the next one—creating a cycle for brand loyalty from buyers who trust and want to reengage with your products continuously. Consider the stage set by Withings. Consumers have multiple entry points to buy across several connected healthcare products—all leading them to download the Withings app. When users buy their first Withings product, they gain experience with the app and develop trust in the brand. Their experience is uniquely personalized, aggregating their health data in one place and integrating it with native iOS and Android health apps. Once users have seamless, connected data built into their native health ecosystem, Withings devices are top of mind when they’re ready to buy another connected healthcare product. Loyalty and personalization is a dynamite combo that enables brands to target at the segment level with broad-based recommendations. Customers receive offers targeted not just at customers like them, but as individuals with uniquely relevant products, offers, and communications. InspiringApps & Brain+Trust This content is a collaboration between InspiringApps and Brain+Trust.