This is a preview of a research report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. This report is exclusively available to enterprise subscribers. To learn more about getting access to this report, email Senior Account Executive Haydn Melia at hmelia@businessinsider.com, or inquire about our enterprise memberships.

Citibank, USAA, BBVA USA, Bank of America, and NFCU lead the US market in offering the most in-demand mobile features in 2019, according to Business Insider Intelligence's third annual US Mobile Banking Competitive Edge Study. 

Mobile is a pivotal banking channel and a vital driver of how customers choose banks, according to our study, which found that 79% of respondents use the channel. Respondents were selected to closely align with the US general population on the criteria of age (18-73), gender, and income. Of respondents who use mobile banking, 38% selected the channel as one of the top three factors they'd consider when choosing a bank — making it the third-ranking answer, edging out online banking, rates, and proximity to ATMs. 

To help banks attract and retain the large base of mobile-oriented customers, our 2019 US Mobile Banking Competitive Edge Study selected 37 sought-after mobile banking capabilities — 18 of which were added to the study this year — and ranked them according to how valuable 2,000 respondents said they are. Next, we determined which of the top 20 US banks and credit unions lead in offering the mobile banking features customers crave.

For more info about the report, use the form at the bottom of the post.

Here are the leaders in supporting sought-after mobile banking tools:

1st: Citibank cemented its reputation as an innovation leader. The bank earned the top spot for a second consecutive year thanks to its broad suite of in-demand mobile banking features. This year, Citi redesigned its app to boost convenience, adding "smart shortcuts" that simplify access to regularly used features. Other new tools introduced include alert enablement when customers withdraw cash from an ATM or receive credit from a merchant, and new credit card activation directly from the account dashboard. Citi also led in the "customer service" category. 

• Score: 84/100
• Rank in 2018: 1st

2nd: USAA excelled in security and account management. The military bank offers a robust mobile feature set that includes rare tools, such as the ability to view the status of a card transaction dispute, set spending limits, and get alerts via push notifications that customers can respond to. Further, as a bank with no branches, it focuses on better serving its users on mobile, offering the option to converse with either a human agent via chat or a conversational AI assistant in the app. Taking second place overall, USAA tied for first in the "security and control" and "account management" categories.

• Score: 82/100
• Rank in 2018: 3rd (+1 place)

3rd: BBVA USA jumped from ninth to third place. Amid its ongoing digital transformation, BBVA USA focused on building out greater money management capabilities: For instance, users can now transfer money from their credit card to their checking, savings, or money market account, as well as enable push notifications and redeem rewards with each qualifying credit card purchase. The bank tied for first in the "account management" and "transfers" sections by offering poorly supported category tools, such as the ability to change a debit card PIN and send money to people abroad.

• Score: 78/100
• Rank in 2018: 9th (+6 places)

4th: Bank of America led in digital money management. To better serve its 29 million active mobile banking users, the bank maintained a rapid pace of feature development over the last year, while in October it unveiled a redesigned app aiming to enhance the user experience with greater ease and convenience. Fresh capabilities include improvements to Erica, the bank's virtual assistant, like new notifications that enable easy enrollment by informing users when balances are trending low. Erica also now offers proactive insights and guidance to help customers stay on top of their finances. 

• Score: 67/100
• Rank in 2018: 5th (+1 place)

5th: NFCU set a high bar for sought-after alerts features. The credit union simplified the user experience on mobile through updates that enabled a number of new features, especially within the "alerts" section. NFCU customers can now enable a slew of new alerts, including notifications for daily and low balances as well as deposits and withdrawals. These can be recieved via any combination of push notification, text, or email. 

• Score: 66/100
• Rank in 2018: 4th (-1 place)

Business Insider Intelligence's Mobile Banking Competitive Edge Study ranks banks according to the strength of their mobile offerings and offers analysis on what banks need to do to win and retain customers. The study is based on a September benchmark of what features the 20 top US banks offer, and a survey of 2,000 US mobile banking users on the importance of 37 cutting-edge features in choosing a bank. The survey was conducted using the Attest Consumer Growth Platform, and fielded during August and September 2019 to a sample closely aligned with the US population on the criteria of age (for those between 18 and 73), gender, and income.  

The full report will be available to Business Insider Intelligence enterprise clients in December. The Mobile Banking Competitive Edge study includes: Ally, Bank of America, BB&T, BBVA Compass, BMO Harris, Capital One, Chase, Citibank, Fifth Third, HSBC, KeyBank, Navy Federal Credit Union, PNC, Regions, SunTrust, TD, Union Bank, US Bank, USAA, and Wells Fargo.

To learn more about getting access to this report, email Senior Account Executive Haydn Melia at hmelia@businessinsider.com, or inquire about our enterprise memberships.

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Artificial intelligence (AI) applications are estimated to save banks $447 billion by 2023, and front- and middle-office AI improvements could represent more than 90% of these savings.

Leveraging AI tools like chatbots, voice assistants, and personalized insights can transform the customer experience by enabling frictionless, 24/7 interactions. Additionally, in middle-office banking, AI can be used to improve anti-money laundering efficiency and payments fraud prevention.

A recent OpenText survey found that 80% of banks are highly aware of the potential benefits presented by AI, but much fewer have taken the dive into implementation. When mindfully executed, AI can enable cost cuts, risk mitigation, and a better user experience, but what does winning execution look like?

In the Winning Strategies for AI in Banking report, Business Insider Intelligence looks at several effective strategies used to capture AI's potential in banking, and details how financial institutions like Citi and US Bank have successfully implemented some of these strategies.

This exclusive report can be yours for FREE today.

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• After some big successes in the 2020 IPO class, investors are looking ahead to a big-name slate of more unicorns and decacorns coming to the public market. 
• Palantir and Asana could go public, perhaps via direct listings, by the end of September.
• Other big names eyeing IPOs include Airbnb and Snowflake. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

After a dip in initial public offerings in the spring, the market is back in full swing.

Tech companies that sat out market volatility and pandemic-induced business uncertainty in the first half of the year are making plans to exit in coming months, now that the market has calmed down and investors have signaled their desire to put big money to work in newly-public companies. 

March, April, and May saw only 13 total IPO pricings, per research from Renaissance Capital. Then June and July ramped up, with 58 pricings total, including tech names like ZoomInfo and SoftBank-backed Lemonade. 

Ted Smith, the co-founder of tech-focused investment bank Union Square Advisors, said he's identified 50 tech companies in the IPO pipeline. But even with the uptick, the bar for IPOs could still be high for many tech names. 

Read more:Equity is the new debt, with Corporate America selling record amounts of stock to stockpile cash. Here's what prompted the sudden shift.

"We absolutely could exceed last year's total numbers of IPOs. Performance so far for the 2020 class has been very positive, which reinforces investors' desire to participate," he said. "It's important not to lose sight of the fact that even with an open IPO market, which I believe we have, the vast majority of exits of venture-backed companies in tech are still going to come from M&A, not an IPO. It's still fairly rarified air with respect to who should become a standalone company." 

There were 159 IPOs in 2019 in the US last year, according to Renaissance Capital, of which 41 were tech companies. 

Going into 2020, bankers said they'd planned to front-load IPOs to avoid November's tumult, but many of those offerings paused when markets turned volatile in March.   

Here are eight companies poised for a public-markets exit, though how they do so – traditional IPO, direct listing, or special purpose acquisition vehicle (SPAC) – is often still up in the air.

The companies could decide to stay private and raise additional capital, as many have done in recent months. They could also sell, like when Uber agreed to buy Postmates more than a year after the food delivery company confidentially filed to go public. 

See more:Big investors have been slashing valuations on stakes in private companies like Palantir and Sweetgreen. But bankers say there could be a quick fix.

SEE ALSO: A 179-year-old data shop just raised $1.7 billion in an IPO. Dun & Bradstreet's president walked us through its quick return to public markets and why the company's in high demand.

Affirm

As buy now, pay later companies see growing interest from merchants and consumers, one of the biggest players in the space is eyeing an exit this year. 

Affirm, founded in 2012 by PayPal cofounder Max Levchin, partners with merchants big and small — from international brands like Adidas to niche retailers like Brooklinen and Peloton.

The company is working with Goldman Sachs on a potential 2020 listing or a sale, including to a SPAC, the Wall Street Journal reported last month. An IPO could value the company at as much as $10 billion.

A spokeswoman for Goldman declined to comment on Affirm and other IPOs. 

Affirm has raised $800 million from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Spark Capital. In its last funding round in April 2019, the company was valued at $2.9 billion, but its valuation has since risen to more than $5 billion – even up to $10 billion, the WSJ reported. 

In late April, Levchin told Business Insider that he was eyeing expansion opportunities while other tech CEOs were battening down the hatches.

Read more:Shopify and Affirm are partnering up on buy now, pay later in a deal bringing together 2 of the hottest e-commerce players. Here's why it's a big win for both sides.

Affirm's peer Afterpay has seen its stock double in the last six months, and it became Australia's largest listed tech company by market value as customers shifted quickly to online shopping. 

A spokeswoman for Affirm declined to comment. 

Airbnb

The homesharing company has played the "will they, won't they" IPO game for more than a year, and some employees' stock grants expire at the end of 2020. 

See more:How 3 guys turned renting air mattresses in their apartment into a $31 billion company, Airbnb

Airbnb, whose public-markets entrance is guided by Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, was one of many late-stage companies to explore a new form of direct listing that would allow companies to raise capital. The Securities and Exchange Commission shot down the New York Stock Exchange's push for such a rule change in December, though the agency said it could be open to other iterations of the new direct listing. 

CEO Brian Chesky said last month that the company has been approached by SPACs, too. 

"We're looking at everything, so I probably shouldn't speculate too much on it," he said in an interview at a Reuters Newsmaker event. 

In April, the company raised $2 billion in two rounds of debt from investors including Sixth Street Partners and Silver Lake. Reuters reported that warrants the investors received as part of the debt deal can be exercised at an $18 billion valuation, lower than Airbnb's early-March $26 billion valuation. 

As Business Insider reported, Principal Global Investors slashed the valuation it put on its stake in Airbnb by 20% from the end of March to the end of June — after it had already cut the startup's worth by 30% in March alone. 

The company's revenue dropped 67% in the second quarter, to $335 million, Bloomberg reported in mid-August. Bookings picked up in the end of the second quarter, as customers looked to book lodging for close-to-home getaways, rather than international travel. 

Bloomberg also reported that Airbnb would go public by year-end.  

A spokesman for Airbnb declined to comment. 

Read more: 40 insiders reveal the meteoric rise of Silver Lake's Egon Durban, the tech-focused PE firm's No. 1 dealmaker who strong-armed his way to the top and is about to get $18 billion more to invest

Asana

Productivity software startup Asana hired banks last year and raised debt earlier this summer ahead of a likely listing in September. 

Last week, The Information reported that Asana projected in July that its revenue would jump to $236 million this year, up from $142 million last year, and in 2021, revenue will grow 51%, to $355 million. 

The San Francisco-based company hired Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan, the Financial Times reported in December. 

And when it raised $200 million in convertible debt, Bloomberg reported in June, cofounder and CEO Dustin Moskovitz was the main lender. 

In February, Asana said it confidentially filed paperwork to go public via a direct listing. 

Founded in 2008, Asana's investors include Generation Investment Management, Benchmark Capital, and Founders Fund. 

The company said it was deepening its relationship with Microsoft, helping it appeal to a broader customer base, Business Insider previously reported.

A spokeswoman for Asana declined to comment. 

See more:Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz explains how his $1.5 billion startup Asana hit a $100 million milestone

DoorDash

The delivery company filed confidential paperwork to go public in late February, with Goldman Sachs as its lead underwriter. Then its plans and business were upended by the pandemic. 

In early March, CEO and co-founder Tony Xu told Business Insider that he was in no hurry to go public.

"Just because you confidentially file ... it doesn't mean that you're going to go public tomorrow, and it also doesn't mean that you have to go public," Xu said in a meeting at DoorDash's nearly empty San Francisco headquarters. "A lot of this work was done a long time ago." 

In mid-June, the company said it raised $400 million in new equity funding at a $16 billion valuation. JPMorgan is also advising DoorDash on its IPO plans, said a source familiar with the path to public markets. 

The competitive landscape for delivery companies has changed dramatically in recent months, as the pandemic intensifies demand for DoorDash and its peers. That's led to some M&A, including the July deal for Uber Eats to buy Postmates and a June deal for European company Just Eat Takeaway to buy Grubhub for $7.5 billion.  

DoorDash has recently expanded from food delivery to partnerships with big companies like Walgreens and a convenience store concept called DashMart starting in eight cities that delivers convenience, grocery, and restaurant items.  

A spokeswoman for DoorDash declined to comment. 

See more:Tony Xu, the founder and CEO of $13 billion DoorDash, said the hardest funding round to raise was the first. Here's what he learned from the experience.

GitLab

Back in 2015, GitLab set a very specific goal: it would go public in November 2020.

CEO Sid Sijbrandij said, even before the pandemic, that the developer startup could go earlier or later than the specific date of November 18. In January, the company said it hit more than $100 million in annual recurring revenue.  

True to its ethos as a radically transparent company, GitLab laid out the steps it needs to take before it goes public in its handbook. In July, the company removed its previous IPO date target to "maintain flexibility." 

Sijbrandij said the company would pursue a direct listing, but it wouldn't rule out a traditional IPO. 

In September 2019, GitLab said it raised $268 million at a $2.75 billion valuation. Its investors include Y Combinator, BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, Light Street Capital and Tiger Management, and Two Sigma Investments.

It's unclear who's advising GitLab on the IPO process, and a spokeswoman declined to comment on the company's plans. 

See more:GitLab is eyeing a direct listing in November 2020, but its CEO explains why the $2.75 billion company could still go the traditional IPO route

Instacart

Like DoorDash, Instacart's business has exploded during the pandemic. 

To keep up with the growth, in June, the grocery delivery company, which was founded in 2012, raised $225 million and then another $100 million in July at a $13.8 billion valuation. 

"Overnight, Instacart became an essential service for millions of families across North America," CEO Apoorva Mehta said in a June statement. 

No IPO timeline is publicly set, but Mehta told CNN back in January 2019 that he was thinking about it. 

"An IPO is definitely on the horizon for us," Mehta said. "As we think about building a long-term company, we think being a public company allows us to do that in the best possible way."

A spokeswoman for Instacart declined to comment. 

Palantir

Palantir Technologies plans to go public using a direct listing in late September, Bloomberg reported last week.

Palantir, the secretive data analytics firm founded by Peter Thiel, has spent nearly two decades running on venture capital, and eventually, on revenue. The company announced last month that it had confidentially filed draft paperwork to go public, but so far none of its financial information has been made public.

A public filing from early July shows the company is in the process of raising $961 million in private capital. So far it has raised $550 million, mostly from the Japanese holding company Sompo Holdings. 

Looking at the direct listing processes for Spotify and Slack – the only companies to go public that way – offer some clues to the path Palantir may take, Business Insider reported on Saturday. 

Both Spotify and Slack direct listings relied on the same three financial advisors: Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Allen & Company. And both companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange. It's unclear which banks Palantir will work with or where it will list. 

A Palantir spokeswoman declined to comment on the company's plans. 

See more: Secretive Palantir Technologies is preparing to go public. But behind the cloak-and-dagger image, insiders and investors say, it's struggled to build a steady revenue model.

Snowflake

Cloud database company Snowflake, advised by Goldman Sachs, filed confidentially with the SEC, the Financial Times reported in June. 

Snowflake is aiming for a valuation of between $15 billion and $20 billion. The FT also reported the company was planning a summer IPO but could wait until September or October.

When the company raised $479 million in February at a $12.4 billion valuation, CEO Frank Slootman said Snowflake was nearing $1 billion in annual revenue and was close to generating positive cash flows.  

Read more: Snowflake is targeting Wall Street with a new data exchange that's already signed up FactSet and Coatue

In total, Snowflake has raised $1.4 billion from investors including Sequoia and ICONIQ Capital.

"It's going to be the blockbuster enterprise listing for 2020," Constellation Research analyst Ray Wang told Business Insider in June. "Investors are looking for winners on cloud and analytics."

Snowflake is building out a data exchange where providers can connect with the consumers of their data in a marketplace hosted and managed by the startup, Business Insider reported in March. Early adopters include the hedge fund Coatue, the data giant FactSet, and the $53 billion asset manager Causeway Capital Management. 

A representative for Snowflake declined to comment on IPO plans. 

See more: Here's why $12.4 billion cloud startup Snowflake's reported IPO plans could make it 'the blockbuster enterprise listing for 2020'

• This is a preview of the Business Insider Intelligence Fintech Accelerators premium research report. Purchase this report here.
• Business Insider Intelligence offers even more fintech coverage with our Fintech Briefing. Subscribe today to receive industry-changing financial technology news and analysis to your inbox.

Accelerators are fixed-term and often cohort-based programs during which an incumbent company, like a financial institution (FI), offers its expertise and guidance to startups, such as fintechs, to help the startups develop their product as well as build their company overall.

While initially introduced by companies with a sole focus on running accelerator programs, banks have entered the fray as the need to introduce new digital financial services has increased. 

By running accelerator programs, banks can benefit from the innovative solutions participating startups can bring to the table — something that's more important than ever as the coronavirus pandemic accelerates digital transformation efforts. Additionally, they get insights into various digital trends to keep tabs on the changing industry. Meanwhile, startups are provided with mentoring and guidance to develop and enhance their products and solutions.

In The Fintech Accelerator Report, Business Insider Intelligence spoke with key figures within the accelerators of top banks — Wells Fargo, Barclays, and Citi — to find out more about how they run their respective programs. We detail how the accelerators provide guidance to help startups develop their solutions, and highlight notable alumni startups from each program to reveal insights on how both fintechs and banks benefit from their participation. Finally, we examine the possible effects of the coronavirus on each accelerator program, and how the banks can still ensure effective programs moving forward.

The companies mentioned in the report include: Alkymi, Ascent RegTech, Bank of England, Barclays, Citi, ChargeAfter, Coinbase, Cover, Cyberwrite, Flux, Kasisto, Lloyds of London, Roostify, Simudyne, Stripe, Techstars, Wells Fargo, Waffle, Y Combinator.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

• This report highlights three accelerators from banks — Wells Fargo, Barclays, and Citi — that have successfully run their programs over a number of years. 
• Wells Fargo's accelerator stands out due to its virtual nature, meaning that participating startups don't have to relocate to a Wells Fargo hub. Participants in the accelerator are chosen based on how they can help streamline the bank's operations, and those that are accepted get access to mentorship and potential funding.
• Barclays launched its accelerator in partnership with Techstars and runs its program in New York and London. Once selected for the program, startups receive mentorship from Barclays and its partners, funding from the bank, and the potential opportunity to partner with the firm outside of the program.
• Citi's accelerator was introduced in 2013 in Tel Aviv, Israel, as part of the Citi Innovation Lab. Startups have to go through a process that includes pitch events to be accepted into the program, during which they receive mentorship and help raising funding.

In full, the report:

• Outlines the benefits of accelerator programs for banks and fintechs.
• Highlights three particular accelerator programs from top banks.
• Details what services banks provide participating startups up with to help develop their solutions.
• Spotlights some notable fintechs that have participated in the banks' accelerators, and how they have benefited from the programs.
• Discusses how the coronavirus has affected the individual programs, and evaluates how banks have reacted to the pandemic.

Interested in getting the full report? Here's how to get access:

1. Business Insider Intelligence analyzes the fintech industry and provides in-depth analyst reports, proprietary forecasts, customizable charts, and more. >> Check if your company has BII Enterprise membership access to the full report
2. Sign up for the Fintech Briefing, Business Insider Intelligence's expert email newsletter tailored for today's (and tomorrow's) decision-makers in the financial services industry, delivered to your inbox 6x a week. >>Get Started
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• Signing up for a new high-yield savings account online can take as little as five minutes at most popular online banks.
• You just need to verify your identity, provide some information, and connect your other bank accounts if you wish.
• Some high-yield savings accounts offer around 1% interest (although rates are subject to change), while savings accounts at traditional banks can offer as little as .01% interest.
• See Business Insider's picks for the best high-yield savings accounts »

Why should you carve out a quarter of an hour to apply for a new account and move over your money? To make more and save more. Online-only accounts often come with more favorable interest rates and fees.

Compared to some nationwide banks, which can pay as little as .01% interest, some of the best online banks pay up to 100 times more interest, offering around 1%. And at the same time, they usually charge no recurring monthly fees with no minimum balance requirements. That's a big win for your money.

Unless you have a job where you get paid in cash, there is no reason you can't go entirely online-only for your banking. But if you just want to start with a high-yield savings account like those offered by Ally, Marcus, or Wealthfront, you can follow these basics steps to get started.

How to open a high-yield savings account

1. Gather your personal information

The first step with any new bank account is getting your personal information together. Banks are required by law to collect customer information. Expect to provide your name, address, phone number, and Social Security number when applying for any new financial account.

Many of the laws regarding providing your information to banks come from the PATRIOT Act introduced after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. In the banking industry, this is known as KYC or Know Your Customer requirements. For us law-abiding customers, that just means we have to provide a little extra information compared to a couple of decades ago.

2. Fill out the application

Most online banking applications take less than 10 minutes to complete. If you are working with a bank that offers a strong customer experience, it may take even less than five minutes.

Most of the application details should be things you already know off of the top of your head. Outside of some employer details, everything in the application is personal.

Online banking may be intimidating if it is new to you, but rest assured that it is safe and simple to use. If you have enough computer skills to make a purchase online or send an email, you can handle the online banking application process and anything you need to do to maintain your account.

3. Fund your account

In many cases, your identity confirmation is instant and you can fund your account right away. If you've ever filled out a direct deposit form for payroll or linked a checking account to pay a mortgage or credit card bill, this will feel very familiar.

My favorite online banks have no minimum balance requirements to avoid monthly fees, though some banks do require a minimum to open a new account. Whether you plan to deposit $1, $100, or $1,000 in your new account, the process is almost always the same.

You may also have the option to mail in a check, deposit a check using your new bank's mobile app, or make a transfer with a bank wire. Outside of wire transfers, there are typically no fees or costs with transferring funds to or from an online savings account.

4. Bonus: Set up your online banking and bill pay

If you add a new checking account at the same time, which is easy to do at most banks and credit unions, you shouldn't stop when you fund your account. Taking a few extra minutes up front can help you get moving on an automatic financial plan.

One of the biggest benefits of online banking is the ability to manage your finances from one central hub. If you connect all of your accounts, including other banks, investments, credit cards, and bills, you'll be able to save a lot of time in the future.

If your account is linked, it makes it really easy to transfer funds. Whether you need to pay for an emergency, want to add to your savings balance, or pay a utility bill, you can do it in a few clicks from your online banking dashboard.

Join the conversation about this story »

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• This is a preview of The Payments Ecosystem research report from Business Insider Intelligence.
• Purchase this report.
• Business Insider Intelligence offers even more consumer coverage with Payments & Commerce Pro. Subscribe today to receive industry-changing payments and commerce news and analysis to your inbox.

The power dynamics in the payments industry are changing as businesses and consumers shift dollars from cash and checks to digital payment methods. Cards dominate the in-store retail channel, but mobile wallets like Apple Pay are seeing a rapid uptick in usage.

At the same time, e-commerce will chip away at brick-and-mortar retail as smartphones attract a rising share of digital shopping. Digital peer-to-peer (P2P) apps are supplanting cash in the day-to-day lives of users across generations as they become more appealing and useful than ever.

And change is trickling down into bigger industries long-dominated by cash and check, like remittances and business-to-business payments.

In response, providers are scrambling for market share. Skyrocketing consolidation that creates mega-giants is forcing providers to diversify in search of new volume.

New entrants, especially from big tech, are threatening the leads of giants. And as payments become increasingly effortless, new types of fraud are threatening data security and privacy. While demand for richer payments offerings is creating opportunities across the space, it's also leaving the industry in search of ways to adapt to change that is putting trillions in volume and billions in revenue up for grabs.

In this report, Business Insider Intelligence examines the payments ecosystem today, its growth drivers, and where the industry is headed. It begins by tracing the path of an in-store card payment from processing to settlement across the key stakeholders. That process is central to understanding payments, and has changed slowly in the face of disruption.

The report also forecasts growth and defines drivers for key digital payment types through 2024. Finally, it highlights three trends that are changing payments, looking at how disparate factors, such as new market entrants and surging fraud, are sparking change across the ecosystem.

The companies mentioned in this report are: ACI Worldwide, Adyen, Amazon, American Express, Apple, Bank of America, Braintree, Bento for Business, Capital One, Citi, Diebold Nixdorf, Discover, Earthport, Elavon, EVO, Facebook, First Data, Fiserv, FIS, Global Payments, Goldman Sachs, Google, Green Dot, Honda, Ingenico, Intuit, JPMorgan Chase, Kabbage, Macy's, Mastercard, MICROS, MoneyGram, NatWest, NICE, NCR, Oracle, Paymentus, PayPal, Rambus, Remitly, Ria, Samsung, SiriusXM, SF Systems, Square, Stripe, Synchrony Financial, The Clearing House, Target, Tipalti, Toast, Transfast, TSYS, Venmo, Verifone, Vocalink, Visa, Walmart, Wells Fargo, WePay, Western Union, Xoom, Zelle

Here are some of the key takeaways from this report:

• In-store payment methods are still on the rise in the US, comprising 89% of retail volume this year. Credit and debit cards continue to lead the segment, as cash and check usage slowly ticks downward. But surging contactless penetration is set to bring mobile in-store payments to prominence for the first time in the years ahead.
• Surging e-commerce will eat away at in-store payments' share of overall retail. PCs will continue to lead the way, but smartphones will inch closer to being the top channel for purchasing, in turn driving growth. At the same time, new payment tools, like voice assistants, wearables, and even cars will begin to give consumers even easier ways to pay.
• The digitization of payments isn't just contained to retail, though, with mobile P2P payments, digital remittances, and digital business payments continuing to blossom as change spreads through the ecosystem.

In full, the report:

• Traces the path of an in-store card payment from processing to settlement across key stakeholders.
• Discusses emerging alternatives to card payments.
• Examines the shifting role of key categories of providers as the ecosystem digitizes and matures.
• Forecasts growth in key categories, including in-store payments, e-commerce, mobile P2P payments, remittances, and B2B payments.
• Identifies three trends set to shape payments in 2020 and evaluates what changes the ecosystem is set to undergo.

Interested in getting the full report? Here's how to get access:

1. Purchase & download the full report from our research store. >> Purchase & Download Now
2. Sign up for Payments & Commerce Pro, Business Insider Intelligence's expert product suite keeping you up-to-date on the people, technologies, trends, and companies shaping the future of consumerism, delivered to your inbox 6x a week. >>Get Started
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4. Current subscribers can read the report here.

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• It's not impossible to get a loan with bad credit, but you'll need to consider all of your options.
• Your credit score and your debt-to-income ratio can impact the rates lenders are willing to offer you, so you'll want to know yours before applying for a loan.
• Borrowers with bad credit can consider approaching credit unions or online lenders, both of which tend to be able to offer lower interest rates than traditional banks.
• They may also want to consider getting a secured loan, or getting a cosigner to guarantee the loan. 
• Sign up to get Personal Finance Insider's newsletter in your inbox »

Getting a loan with bad credit can be challenging, but it's not impossible. There are several ways to boost your chances for being approved for a loan. We've asked experts how to get the loan you need, even if you have bad credit.

How to get a loan with bad credit

1. Understand how your credit score affects interest rates

Generally, a credit score is the most important factor in deciding what interest rate a lender will offer you. "Although many lenders offer personal loans to borrowers with only fair credit, you can expect to pay higher interest rates," says Jamie Young, personal financial expert with Credible, an online loan marketplace.

No matter what your credit score, it's important to check rates with multiple lenders to see who will offer you the best rate and terms. "If your credit score is low, don't assume that if you're turned down by one lender that you can't get a loan. You may have to apply to several lenders before you'll get an offer," Young says.

2. Get your most recent credit score

It's one thing to suspect you have bad credit, and another to know exactly how bad it is. Credit scoring company FICO issues five categories of credit score:

• poor: 300-579
• fair: 580-669
• good: 670-739
• very good: 740-799
• excellent: 800-850

It's always a good idea to have a sense of your credit status before you apply for any loan. Companies like Credit Karma issue a close approximation of your score for free, and there's no limit on how many times you can check it.

You don't need to have excellent credit to get a loan, but as your score creeps down through "very good" and "good" into "fair" and "poor," you'll see a change in the rates and offers lenders are willing to give you — if they're willing to give you a loan at all.

Priyanka Prakash, lending and credit expert with Fundera, says online lenders (more on that below) will work with individuals who have as low as a 550 FICO score.

3. Calculate your debt-to-income ratio

Some lenders will also calculate a potential borrower's debt-to-income ratio — how much of that person's monthly income goes toward debt — to help decide whether to issue a loan.

You can find your debt-to-income ratio through a simple calculation: Divide all monthly debt payments by gross monthly income and you have a ratio, or percentage (once you move the decimal point two places to the right).

"Lenders prefer a debt-to-income ratio of 35% or lower, meaning no more than 35% of your income should go towards paying back debt — this includes the loan you're applying for and existing loans," says Prakash.

4. Consider a credit union

Credit unions are a great option for those looking to get a loan with bad credit. They are more flexible and they cap out their interest rates at 18%, says Nathalie Noisette, founder of CreditConversion.

According to Experian, not-for-profit status means credit unions are exempt from paying taxes and may be willing to accept riskier borrowers than banks would, and they can charge lower interest rates and fees than banks. Experian also says that poor credit may not be a deal breaker at a credit union, as a credit union considers the applicant's entire financial application and history.

5. Consider a secured loan

Since consumers with bad credit are seen as a default risk, secured loans are issued with a caveat — collateral, says Noisette. "If a consumer is willing to put a house, car, watch, or just about anything up against the amount of the loan, they will be able to qualify more easily," she says.

Mortgages, home equity loans, and auto loans are considered secured loans, since you're putting up collateral. However, a secured credit card may also be considered a secured loan.

Remember that if you take out a secured loan using your home, your car, or something else as collateral, you run the risk of losing that collateral should you become unable to pay your loans — in plain language, if you agree to offer your car as collateral and become unable to pay the money you owe, the lender could seize your car.

Most any lender that offers unsecured loans, including banks and credit unions, will also offer secured loans.

6. Consider a home equity loan

If you have home that has equity, consider using the equity. That money is available can be used, without leaning on a poor credit history.

"Your credit score will not be factored into the decision to use a home equity loan," says Noisette. "As long as there is equity, you can use it to your advantage."

Home equity loans have a fixed interest rate and fixed repayment term, Holly Johnson reports for Business Insider. "You can borrow money for up to 30 years," writes Johnson, "and the interest may be tax deductible if you itemize on your taxes and use the money to make substantial improvements to your home."

However, she writes, bear in mind that there are some downsides to a home equity loan: primarily, that you're putting your home up as collateral, so you could lose your home if you fail to repay. Plus, some home equity loans do have fees, and you need considerable home equity to qualify. If you do decide to pursue a home equity loan as an option, make sure to do your research and compare multiple offers from lenders.

7. Search online lenders

If you have bad credit, you can still get a loan by searching beyond your bank.

Prakash says online lenders will work with individuals who have as low as a 550 FICO score. Personal loan lenders include SoFi, Payoff, and Lending Club. Sites like Credible, Fundera, and LendingTree allow borrowers to compare offers from multiple lenders side by side.

Banks face more regulations, so "as a result, they have the strictest lending standards, so if you fall below a certain credit bracket, you're out of luck," says Prakash. "Online lenders are a lot more flexible. They place less importance on credit and more importance on your ability to pay back a loan. That means income is paramount."

If the borrower can show you have sufficient income from your job or your business or assets to draw on to pay back your loan, then you can get approved even with a bad credit score.

8. Bring on a cosigner

If you're able to bring in a cosigner who adds enough strength to your application to get approved, it could make the difference between buying a home now and waiting until you can rebuild your credit.

"Cosigners give lenders peace of mind, because they provide lenders with an extra layer of security if the primary borrower becomes unable to make the payments," says Josh Goodwin, mortgage loan expert with Goodwin Mortgage Group. "In this event, the cosigner must take over payments until the primary borrower gets back on his or her feet. That said, if the primary borrower defaults, the lender can pursue remedies from the cosigner, even if they also end up unable to pay."

If you're considering bringing on a cosigner, make sure that person understands that they're liable for your loan payments should you be unable to pay.

9. Consider getting your credit report to better understand your score

Going forward, you'll want to try and increase your credit score to make it easier to get a loan next time, or perhaps to refinance the ones you have. The first step in increasing your credit score is to understand it, and the way to do that is by getting your credit report.

Your credit report spells out everything being counted in your credit — every loan, every credit card, every debt. You'll want to take a look to make sure everything is correct — it's not uncommon, nor unfixable, for there to be mistakes — and to see where you might be able to make a big difference fast, like paying off an old utility bill that went into collections without your knowledge. (It happens!)

You're entitled to one free copy of your credit report every 12 months from each of the three nationwide credit reporting companies, Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. Order it online from annualcreditreport.com, or call 1-877-322-8228.

10. Try and boost your credit score

Your credit score is calculated, approximately, with the following five factors:

• payment history (35%)
• current debt balances (30%)
• length of credit history (15%)
• new credit (10%)
• credit mix (10%)

Some of those factors are difficult to change, like the length of your credit history.

But others can make a big impact in a relatively short time.

"The biggest factor in your credit score is your on-time payment history, so you should start by making sure that is perfect going forward," writes Eric Rosenberg for Business Insider. "The easiest way to ensure you never miss a payment due date is to turn on automatic billing and payments using your bank's bill pay or your credit card billing website."

Note that improving your credit is a marathon, not a sprint. If you're taking steps in the right direction, you'll see it pay off — and the next time you want to apply for a loan, you'll be in a better position.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: What it's like inside North Korea's controversial restaurant chain

• This is a preview of The Monetization of Open Banking research report from Business Insider Intelligence.
• 14-Day Risk Free Trial: Get full access to this and all Fintech industry research reports.

Open banking has arrived, and it's transforming the UK's banking landscape — next up could be the world. Regulatory efforts in the UK are transforming retail banking, reshaping incumbents' relationships with customers, and easing entry for fintechs.

Regulators across every continent are responding with actions of their own. Underpinning open banking initiatives is the idea that ownership of transactional data belongs to consumers instead of incumbent financial institutions.

The implications of this change for established lenders in the UK are significant. For those that act, open banking presents substantial revenue-generating opportunities.

But the consequences of inaction are even more severe: Business Insider Intelligence estimates that by 2024, £6.5 billion ($8.4 billion) of UK incumbents' revenues will be under threat of being scooped up by forward-thinking companies like fintechs and neobanks. Yet even through the financial incentives to act are clear, many incumbents are struggling to determine the best path to monetization. In fact, some aren't even sure what their options are.

In The Monetization of Open Banking report, Business Insider Intelligence identifies monetization strategies incumbents have at their disposal, describes how they can determine the best approach for their specific needs, and outlines actionable steps they need to make their chosen open banking initiative successful.  

The companies mentioned in this report are: Allied Irish Bank (AIB), Bank of Ireland, Barclays, Danske Bank, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, Nationwide, RBS Group, and Santander, Monzo, Starling, ING, Yolt, Fidor, BBVA

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

• Driven by regulatory action, open banking is transforming the UK's banking landscape, but it's also gaining momentum globally.
• For incumbents, open banking entails a significant threat to their entrenched position.
• But for forward-looking banks, there are substantial opportunities for revenue generation, both directly and indirectly.
• To seize these opportunities — and avoid losing revenue to fintechs and neobanks — it's critical that legacy players focus their efforts in the right direction, including identifying their strategic priorities.

 In full, the report:

• Details the UK's Open Banking regulation in depth.
• Forecasts the size of the UK's Open Banking-enabled banking industry over the next five years.
• Discusses the types of monetization opportunities available for incumbents, as well as non-direct revenue-generation opportunities.  
• Provides actionable steps on how banks can best determine the best strategic approach from the options available.

Interested in getting the full report? Here are two ways to access it:

1. Purchase & download the full report from our research store. >> Purchase & Download Now
2. Subscribe to a Premium pass to Business Insider Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report and more than 250 other expertly researched reports. As an added bonus, you'll also gain access to all future reports and daily newsletters to ensure you stay ahead of the curve and benefit personally and professionally. >>Learn More Now

The choice is yours. But however you decide to acquire this report, you've given yourself a powerful advantage in your understanding of the fast-moving world of fintech.

Join the conversation about this story »

• Insider Intelligence publishes thousands of research reports, charts, and forecasts on the Fintech industry. You can learn more about becoming a client here.
• The following is a preview of one Fintech report, Digital Wealth Management. You can purchase this report here.

Although they only hold a fraction of the more than $43 trillion in investable assets under management (AUM) in North America, digital wealth management adoption is set to grow in the future — presenting an opportunity for fintechs and incumbents alike.

Digital wealth managers, also called robo-advisors, came into existence after the financial crisis in 2008, when fintechs aimed to simplify and democratize wealth management services. They use technology such as AI algorithms and machine learning to manage users' assets, while often relying on a hybrid model including human advice to enhance the customer relationship.

Insider Intelligence estimates that just around $330 billion was invested in robo-advisors in North America in 2019. However, we expect that number to increase significantly over the next few years to reach $830 billion by 2024 — presenting an opportunity to fintechs and incumbents already in the space, as well as financial institutions (FIs) that want to get involved with digital wealth management. 

Offering digital wealth management services allows players to make their operations more efficient and offer users a broader suite of services, as customers are increasingly expecting digital and automated services from their wealth managers. Additionally, it can help FIs lure in younger demographics that can't yet afford conventional wealth management, and later graduate them to more premium offerings, as they build their wealth. At the same time, digital wealth managers are facing their first economic downturn amid the coronavirus pandemic, which could impact the sustainability of their businesses moving forward if they don't adjust their services.

In The Digital Wealth Mangement Report, Insider Intelligence explains what the current digital wealth management market looks like, what makes the segment worthwhile for incumbents, and how they can find success in the space. We profile the four biggest digital wealth managers in North America in detail to provide insight into their onboarding process, portfolio management, and pricing, as well as how they've been affected by the pandemic and what they're doing to accommodate changing customer needs.

Our outreach process involved exclusive interviews across three providers in May 2020, while Personal Capital's profile is based on desk research and email conversations with the company due to interviewee unavailability. Additionally, we discuss why more incumbents should offer robo-advisory services, and define a digital maturity model for robo-advisors to showcase important features and capabilities that incumbents should take note of to find success.

The companies mentioned in the report include: Acorns, Betterment, BlackRock, Blooom, Charles Schwab, Ellevest, FutureAdvisor, Invessence, InvestCloud, M1 Finance, Personal Capital, RobustWealth, TD Ameritrade, Vanguard, Wealthfront, Wealthsimple

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

• Although digital wealth managers only hold a fraction of investable AUM in North America, robo-advisor adoption is set to grow in the future — presenting an opportunity for fintechs and incumbents alike.
• While some incumbent FIs already offer digital wealth management services, not all have gotten in on the trend, despite its many benefits — and of those that have, not all have found success.
• The pandemic represents a potential threat to digital wealth managers, but there are ways to navigate the crisis and support their customers. For that reason, digital wealth management still represents an attractive opportunity for incumbents looking to enter the space.
• Betterment, Wealthfront, Wealthsimple, and Personal Capital all rely heavily on technology like algorithms to build portfolios for customers and support their wealth management experience, which helps them to offer their services at a lower cost when compared with conventional offerings.

In full, the report:

• Outlines the benefits of launching a digital wealth management offering
• Details the Digital Wealth Management Maturity Model used to assess the progress that players are making in the space.
• Spotlights the four biggest fintech digital wealth managers in North America and what they offer.
• Highlights how technology is being used across the services, and how this impacts pricing.
• Discusses how these players have been impacted by the coronavirus crisis

Interested in getting the full report? Here's how you can gain access:

1. Join other Insider Intelligence clients who receive this report, along with thousands of other Fintech forecasts, briefings, charts, and research reports to their inboxes. >> Become a Client
2. Purchase the individual report from our store. >> Buy The Report Here

Are you a current Insider Intelligence client? Log in and read the report here.

Join the conversation about this story »

The second annual edition of The UK Mobile Banking Competitive Edge Report examines which UK banks lead in offering the mobile features customers value most.

Our analysts use research and recommendations solicited from the banks participating in our study to identify mobile banking features that might move the needle in bank selection. We then rank the 10 largest UK banks using a weighted scorecard that assigns each feature a point value based on real customer demand.

The 2020 UK study has been updated with two new categories of features: Alerts and Customer Service. The returning categories have also been refreshed to add innovative capabilities and replace ubiquitous ones. In total, we've upped the total number of new features to 41 from 33 last year.

This report aims to help channel strategists identify the mobile banking features customers most desire and see how they stack up to competitors when it comes to offering those features.

Simply enter your information to learn more about Insider Intelligence Banking research and The UK Mobile Banking Competitive Edge report.

Join the conversation about this story »

This is a preview of the “Global Fintech Landscape” premium research report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. To learn more about Business Insider Intelligence,  click here.

Since sprouting in the US and UK around 10 years ago, fintech has spread globally. Now, after years of proliferation, countries around the world are starting to see their fintech industries mature. Additionally, we continue to see the emergence of new hotbeds for fintech. This indicates that the space is still far from being fully developed, and that there are many new ways in which startups and their technologies continue to change financial services.

The fact that many new players are emerging in the space also suggests that attention is shifting away from the main countries where fintech is prevalent, and that investors are seeing the potential of newer, conventionally untapped markets.

The spread of fintech can be largely seen in the emergence of fintech hubs — cities where startups, talent, and funding congregate — which are proliferating globally in tandem with ongoing disruption in financial services. These hubs are all vying to become established fintech centers in their own right, and want to contribute to the broader financial services ecosystem of the future. Their success depends on a variety of factors, including access to funding and talent, as well as the approach of relevant regulators.

In this report, Business Insider Intelligence compiles various fintech snapshots, which together show the global proliferation of fintech, and illustrate where fintech is starting to mature and where it is just breaking onto the scene. Each snapshot provides an overview of the fintech industry in a particular country, and details what is contributing to or hindering its further development. We also include notable fintechs in each geography, and discuss what the opportunities or challenges are for that particular domestic industry.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

• Besides the US and UK, there are plenty of other countries developing strong fintech hubs. Australia, Switzerland, and China, which are profiled in this report, have managed to leverage their stable financial centers of Sydney, Zurich, and Shanghai, respectively, to spur fintech development and attract funding.
• There are also a number of emerging fintech markets, including Brazil, Israel, and Canada, that are likely to play a big part in the global fintech ecosystem in the future. These countries have nascent but rapidly developing fintech hubs, as well as supportive regulatory environments, that could help them cement strong positions in the broader fintech scene.
• Many more fintech hubs will likely morph into big fintech players. This could push investors to increasingly wake up to the opportunities in new markets, leading fintech funding to become more diversified in the future, particularly outside of the UK and US.

 In full, the report:

• Outlines how the fintech industry has changed over the past 10 years.
• Details which cities are the most likely to succeed as fintech hubs at present and going forward.
• Highlights notable fintech startups in each of these markets.
• Discusses the potential opportunities and challenges these countries are facing today and in the future.

Interested in getting the full report? Here are two ways to access it:

1. Purchase & download the full report from our research store. >>Purchase & Download Now
2. Subscribe to a Premium pass to Business Insider Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report and over 100 other expertly researched reports. As an added bonus, you'll also gain access to all future reports and daily newsletters to ensure you stay ahead of the curve and benefit personally and professionally. >> Learn More Now

The choice is yours. But however you decide to acquire this report, you've given yourself a powerful advantage in your understanding of the fast-moving world of Fintech.

SEE ALSO: Latest fintech industry trends, technologies and research from our ecosystem report

Join the conversation about this story »

• Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has Apple shares and cash worth 52% of its entire market capitalization.
• The billionaire investor's company owned $113 billion in Apple stock and $147 billion in cash at the last count, representing more than half of its $499 billion market cap.
• Berkshire's market value suggests the rest of its business is worth less than $240 billion, even though it generated more than $250 billion in revenue last year.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway owned about $260 billion in cash and Apple stock at the last count, representing an astounding 52% of its $499 billion market capitalization.

The famed investor's conglomerate held about 245 million Apple shares as of June 30, giving it a roughly 5.7% stake in the iPhone maker. Apple's stock price has soared about 57% to an all-time high this year, boosting the value of Berkshire's position by more than $40 billion to around $113 billion as of Tuesday's close.

Buffett's company also boasted a record $147 billion in cash and US Treasuries at the end of June — an increase of about $19 billion from the end of December 2019.

Meanwhile, Berkshire's stock price is down about 9% this year, weighing on its market cap. By comparison, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq indexes both closed at record highs on Wednesday.

Read more:Warren Buffett's bet on Barrick Gold isn't as strange as it looks. The miner models itself on Berkshire Hathaway.

The outcome of Berkshire growing its cash pile and its Apple stock climbing in value, while its market cap remains depressed, is that its cash and Apple shares are now worth more than half of the entire company.

Admittedly, Berkshire has ramped up its spending since the end of June. It agreed to pay about $4 billion in cash for Dominion Energy's natural-gas assets, plowed around $2.1 billion into Bank of America stock in the three weeks to August 4, and appears to have repurchased roughly $2 billion of its own stock in July.

However, that still leaves it with around $139 billion in cash and a total of $252 billion in cash and Apple stock, representing more than 50% of its current market cap.

Read more:Warren Buffett bet on a gold miner and slashed his bank stakes because he's picking winners, a veteran Berkshire Hathaway shareholder says

Berkshire's market value implies that without the Apple shares and cash, the rest of its business is worth less than $240 billion. That's hard to believe given the massive scale and diversity of its operations.

Buffett's company owns scores of businesses including Geico, See's Candies, Dairy Queen, Duracell, Fruit of the Loom, NetJets, Precision Castparts, PacifiCorp, MidAmerican Energy, the BNSF Railway, and Marmon, which itself owns more than 100 manufacturing and services businesses.

Berkshire also generated about $254 billion in revenue and $69 billion in pre-tax income last year, excluding a roughly $34 billion gain on its Apple stock and around $750 million in dividends from the tech titan.

Moreover, strip out Berkshire's cash and Apple stock and it still boasted about $160 billion in net assets as of June 30.

Read more:Warren Buffett disciple Joel Greenblatt averaged 50% annual returns over 10 years. He shares an investor's approach to solving some of America's most glaring problems right now — from education and immigration to social security.

Berkshire's market cap doesn't seem to reflect its size, asset base, and financial health. The company is exposed to the pandemic through its its numerous insurance, manufacturing, retail, industrial, and service businesses, but its current valuation still seems disconnected from reality.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why you don't see brilliantly blue fireworks

Happy hump day!

Late Monday night a story broke about SoftBank investing $3.9 billion into some of the world's largest tech companies. As first reported by Bloomberg, SoftBank has put large stakes into Amazon ($1.04 billion), Alphabet ($475 million), Netflix ($189 million) and other household names. 

It's certainly a pivot for SoftBank, led by Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son. Traditionally, the Japanese conglomerate has, for better or worse, looked to invest in private startups.   

So what does it mean that SoftBank has adopted the same trading strategy as your average Robinhood trader? It's not fully clear yet, but it's still interesting to see Son make such a big push into the public markets.  

If you're not yet a subscriber, you can sign up here to get your daily dose of the stories dominating banking, business, and big deals.

Like the newsletter? Hate the newsletter? Feel free to drop me a line at ddefrancesco@businessinsider.com or on Twitter @DanDeFrancesco. 

Initial public offerings are back in full swing after a slight hiatus as volatility rocked the markets earlier this year. 

Meghan Morris highlighted eight high-profile startups eyeing the public markets, along with great background details on the companies. 

This year, obviously, has been anything but normal, so it will be interesting to see how many actually end up getting listed. So far, 2020 has been the year of the SPAC, so it'll be nice to see companies with actual revenues make their public debuts. 

Click here to read the full story on the hottest up-and-coming IPOs.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why you don't see brilliantly blue fireworks

• Wall Street is eager to get data on Robinhood users' trading activity following the startup's decision to shut down access to the info.
• SimilarWeb, an alt-data provider that tracks web traffic for millions of websites, compared trading volume on individual US stocks with weekly visits to their respective pages on Robinhood.com.
• The analysis indicated a 93% correlation between the two variables, with some stocks coming in as high as 98%.
• Their findings suggest traffic to Robinhood's website is a representation of the app's actual order flow, and can be used to better understand retail influence on the overall market's trading volumes.
• That could be used by hedge funds or other traders to predict whether or not the momentum in a stock's price is likely to persist or fade away.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

An alternative-data provider believes it has found another way to discern the habits of Robinhood's customers as Wall Street scrambles to find a replacement for information on the type of trading done by the popular app's users

SimilarWeb, which tracks web traffic for millons of websites, compared US stocks with the highest trading volumes over the past 90 days with the number of weekly visits to their respective pages on Robinhood.com. The result of the analysis, conducted by SimilarWeb analyst Aria Ertefaie, showed a 93% correlation on a consolidated basis over the course of a year.

The findings suggest that traffic to Robinhood's website is a representation of the app's actual order flow, and can be used to better understand retail influence on the overall market's trading volumes.

If Robinhood users are favoring a particular stock that enjoys a high correlation between web traffic and trading volumes, it could predict an increase in overall market volume in the coming days, according to Ed Lavery, director of investor solutions at SimilarWeb. 

Another use case relies on the idea that retail traders like those who use Robinhood are more influenced by sentiment or news around a company. That makes the data useful as a way to understand how sensitive a stock's volume might be to sentiment and would allow hedge funds or other traders to better predict whether or not the momentum in a stock's price is likely to persist or fade away, Lavery said in an email.  

To be sure, SimilarWeb only tracked hits to Robinhood's website via desktop, leaving out any indications of interest on its popular app, or other mobile uses. Also, web traffic isn't 100% indicative of actual orders being placed, as a user could hypothetically visit a stock's page without purchasing it.  

But a user looking to buy or sell a stock on Robinhood via desktop would need to visit the company's corresponding page before placing the order. Add in the fact that Robinhood doesn't have a research function that would lead large numbers of people to visit the stock's page without placing an order, and SimilarWeb feels confident that web traffic is a meaningful indicator of trading activity.  

"When you actually search for a ticker, you're very close to trading it. You're one click away," Ertefaie told Business Insider. "That's one of the reasons why I think we do have very good correlation with these stocks. The intent of actually going through with the purchase or selling the stock is very high because Robinhood is not a research platform. When you are there and you actually put TSLA there, you have a very high intention of placing an order."

Read more:Steve Cohen's Point72 and other hedge funds are sending urgent requests to find a replacement after Robinhood data on hot stock trades suddenly went dark

SimilarWeb's findings come at a time when Wall Street is starved for Robinhood data after the popular trading app changed its policy and curtailed access to its trading volumes.

The volumes were a critical input into the analysis conducted by a popular website, robintrack.net, which tracked the favorite stocks on the platform. The site's founder, Casey Primozic, told Bloomberg that he would be shutting down his website in the wake of Robinhood's policy change.

Earlier this year, Primozic told the news service that hedge funds and proprietary trading firms were using his data as an input into trading algorithms.

Just hours after the news about robintrack.net's closing was first reported, hedge funds including Steve Cohen's Point72 started scrambling for alternative data sources. Representatives of the fund reached out to other trading platforms and investing apps, people with direct knowledge of their efforts told Business Insider. In some cases, those reps described their interest in a partnership as "an urgent request."

A spokesperson for Point72 declined to comment last week when contacted by Business Insider.  

SimilarWeb's Lavery said that while some customers have shown interest in this type of data, this is the first time the alt-data provider has packaged it in a fundamental way. Though the analysis is based on weekly page visits, SimilarWeb does have the capability to get data daily.

And while those stocks with the highest correlation to trading volumes are intriguing — American Airlines and Delta Air Lines were both the highest at 98% — Ertefaie said there is also value in stocks with lower correlations. 

Such a relationship could be because of lag between page visits and increases in trading volume, which could be more beneficial for a trading firm trying to think ahead. 

"Some of the ones that have lower correlation, your eyes can see and find the pattern, maybe a little bit of a lag," Ertefaie said. "That could be very valuable."

Here are 20 charts demonstrating the correlation between a stock's weekly trading volume and the weekly page visits to its respective page on Robinhood.com over the course of 12 months.

SEE ALSO: 'A $35,000 data set that could have saved or made $100 million': Alt data is back in the spotlight — here's how providers and buyers have adapted.

SEE ALSO: Alt data's Wild West days may be ending as Congress and privacy advocates zero in on the industry. Nearly a dozen insiders tell us how data streams going dark is an 'unhedgeable' risk.

Advanced Micro Devices (58% correlation)

American Airlines (98%)

Apple (53%)

Bank of America (66%)

The Boeing Company (95%)

Carnival Corporation (94%)

Cisco Systems (30%)

Delta Air Lines (98%)

Ford (90%)

General Electric (80%)

Micron Technology (39%)

Microsoft (63%)

Moderna (94%)

Norwegian Cruise Lines (96%)

Novavax (73%)

Occidental Petroleum (93%)

Penn National Gaming (95%

PG&E Corporation (68%)

United Airlines (94%)

Wells Fargo (85%)

Read more:

• Competition among private equity firms and hedge funds for the best young talent on Wall Street is fierce.
• Many buy-side shops rely on specialized headhunting firms to help them identify and hire the most promising future dealmakers and traders. 
• Some of these gatekeepers have been recruiting for alternative-investment firms for decades, while others have materialized in recent years as trillions in capital have funneled into the strategies and increased demand. 
• Business Insider tapped its sources at investment firms, business schools, and the recruiting world to identify 12 of the top firms that private equity and hedge funds rely on to identify future Wall Street all-stars. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Competition among alternative-asset managers for the best young talent is fierce. Whether it's poaching from investment-banking analyst programs or more seasoned practitioners finishing up an MBA, private-equity firms, hedge funds, and other buy-side investors duke it out to ensure they're landing top prospects to replenish their ranks and shore up their future generation of partners and portfolio managers. 

As billions in capital continues to flock to these strategies, the recruiting gauntlet has grown ever more intense. Last year, private-equity firms started their 2021 class search by late summer, locking up 22-year-olds with only a few weeks of banking experience under their belts in the earliest recruiting blitz on record. 

Privately, some recruiters have expressed to Business Insider a hope that the recruitment timeline may be delayed given the complications from the pandemic, including disjointed start dates, virtual training, and remote work — but they noted it was still too early to tell. 

Read More: Apollo is revamping recruiting and trying to soften its culture amid a big growth push. From MBA summer internships to kids' story time, here's a look.

On the flipside, thousands of young Wall Street analysts with dreams of long and lucrative careers managing investments are vying for coveted positions at prestigious firms like Blackstone, Apollo Global, and Citadel.

Straddling the two worlds are the gatekeepers: A cadre of headhunting firms that specialize in the annual circus of interviewing and assessing aspiring dealmakers and traders and funneling the best of the bunch to their top buy-side clients. 

Some boutiques have practiced this brand of Wall Street recruiting for as much as three decades, dating back to when it was truly a niche. But alternative asset classes have exploded — private equity and hedge funds alone had nearly $8 trillion in assets under management globally in 2019, according to Preqin— and other firms have emerged to help fill the need, in several cases with founders splitting off from old-guard practitioners to launch their own competitors.

See more:Private-equity firms are already interviewing 22-year-old bankers who will start in 2 years. Their earliest-ever hiring kickoff shows how crazy the battle for talent has gotten.

Business Insider tapped its sources— including contacts at asset managers, business schools, and executive search firms — to identify 12 of the top firms that recruit budding front-office investors to the buy side. While some of these firms recruit at senior levels and for other industries as well, they each have robust businesses recruiting pre-MBA, MBA, and post-MBA employees.

"It's not a business that search firms can pursue casually. It is very labor intensive; the search consultants have to cultivate relationships with a huge amount of analysts during the year, and then get the timing right by having them ready to go on interviews during the brief window when the PE firms are doing the hiring, " John Arbolino, a managing director at Boothroyd & Co., a consulting firm that specializes in recruiting for Wall Street executive search firms, told Business Insider.

"It can be lucrative for the search firms, but they have to be very dedicated to call the analysts all year long and then make the hit during hiring season."

While some firms agreed to speak about their recruiting efforts on the buy side, others either declined to comment or did not return a request for comment.

Here are the 12 headhunting firms to know if you want a career in alternative asset management — or if you're an investment firm looking to connect with the most promising young standouts on Wall Street. 

SEE ALSO: Private-equity giants like Carlyle are inking more deals in Asia. Here are the areas where they see the most investing opportunity.

SEE ALSO: POWER PLAYERS: Meet 13 Apollo execs, rising stars, and new hires propelling the firm's massive push into credit investments

Amity Search Partners

Locations: New York, San Francisco, Austin, San Diego

Staff size: 17

Amity was founded in 2009 by Pam Esterson and Susanna Nichols after the duo broke off from their former firm, SG Partners, one of the longest-running buy-side recruiting shops.

Esterson and Nichols now run a staff of 15 recruiters who place candidates with alternative-investment shops across the country — as well as some international markets — with dedicated offices now in New York, San Francisco, Austin, and San Diego. 

Clients include Bain Capital, Centerbridge Partners, and Trian Partners, according to the company's website. 

BellCast Partners

Locations: New York 

Staff size: 11

BellCast Partners works with private equity, venture capital, and alternative asset management firms, as well as some hedge funds and distressed funds.

"We focus across the spectrum from the entry-level folks into their first buy-side job, all the way to managing directors and partners," the firm's cofounder Danielle Caston Strazzini told Business Insider. Caston Strazzini founded the firm with Alison Bellino Johnson after working together at CPI, a veteran firm in the buy-side recruiting space, in the 2000s. 

CPI

Locations: New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco

Staff size: 34

CPI sources talent across the spectrum, but it specializes in shepherding the pre-MBA through post-MBA crowd into an array of investment management firms, from private equity and credit funds to hedge funds and VC firms. Founded in 1996 by CEO Brian O'Callaghan, it's one of the longest-tenured players in the field.

The firm assesses 3,000 candidates annually, according to its website,  sourcing from analyst programs at more than 50 investment banks and consulting firms as well as top b-schools like Wharton, Harvard, Stanford, and Columbia. CPI has clients in Latin America, Asia, and Europe in addition to its US presence. 

Dynamics Search Partners

Locations: New York

Staff size: 14

Dynamics Search Partners is a top recruiter to alternative-investment shops. While 75% of its candidate placements end up in hedge funds and private-equity firms, partners Keith Mann and Josh Grauer also have inroads to family offices, endowments, and venture firms.

"We do just about everything — family offices, private equity, public markets," Mann told Business Insider.

Mann has been recruiting on Wall Street since the early 2000s, launching DSP in 2008 to focus exclusively on the buy side. 

Glocap Search

Locations: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco

Staff size: 41

Glocap, founded in 1997 by Adam Zoia and now run by CEO Annette Krassner, has a diversified recruitment operation — they handle Wall Street investment searches across the board, but also media, technology, and entertainment mandates.

Its longest-running and largest practice is placing young analysts and MBA grads at hedge funds and private-equity firms.

Glocap has seven people dedicated to that business, which is now run by managing directors Katie Cunningham and Sarah Armstrong. While most of their work focuses on the buy side, they collaborate with teammates focused on investment banking, corporate development, or real estate to make sure candidates can find the right fit. 

"As a firm we offer the widest variety of exit opportunities," Cunningham told Business Insider. "Everyone on our team has spent time at an alternative investment firm or investment bank, so we have a good understanding of how the ecosystem works."

While the firm excels in placing junior and mid-level talent, they handle mandates at the senior levels as well.

"Many of the candidates who were candidates as young bankers are now really important clients and relationships," Armstrong said. "It's a very natural, organic way in which we built the firm."

Gold Coast Search Partners

Locations: New York, San Francisco

Staff size: 8

Gold Coast was founded in 2009 by a trio of recruiters that defected from CPI — Anna Brady, Janelle Matthews, and Beth Grossman. 

Like their previous shop, Gold Coast specializes in placing junior and mid-level talent in buy-side investment roles, including private equity, venture, and growth equity. 

And like the name suggests, the search boutique is rooted in its expertise of the Bay Area market. 

Henkel Search Partners

Locations: New York, San Francisco

Staff size: 22

A former managing director in investment banking at Morgan Stanley, Eleni Henkel now runs Henkel Search Partners, which runs searches for pre- and post-MBA candidates and more senior-level principals. 

Henkel, along with founding partner Leah Trabich, started HSP in 2011 after working together at SG Partners, one of the longest-running competitors in the space. 

HSP has worked on "hundreds of searches and placed thousands of candidates at buy-side and advisory firms," its website boasts.

Odyssey Search Partners

Locations: New York

Staff size: 13

Odyssey Search Partners specializes in private equity and hedge fund searches running the gamut from pre-MBA candidates up through the most senior levels of the corporate hierarchy. The firm was founded by recruiter Adam Kahn in 2010.

"We narrowly focus on front-office professionals or investment professionals, with a big eye towards helping hedge fund and private-equity firms identify more diverse talent pools," said Anthony Keizner, one of the firm's two managing partners, in an interview with Business Insider. "These professionals range from partners and portfolio managers at the top of the organizations through associates and analysts at the start of their careers."

On its website, Odyssey reports having completed searches in 14 cities across the US, with 93% of those searches resulting in a filled position.

The Oxbridge Group

Locations: New York, Los Angeles

Staff size: 23

When it was founded in 1988, the Oxbridge Group originally focused its recruiting efforts on investment banking professionals. Subsequently, as private-equity investing gained momentum in the 1990's, the firm pivoted to more intensive PE recruiting, and added on hedge fund searches in 2011.

Nina Swift founded the firm, but veteran recruiter Marty Brady joined her six years later and has been helping run the firm since.

The company now has a large continent of managing directors — 11 in all — explaining on its website that Oxbridge is "one of the few boutique search firms that has a flat structure, and our managing directors are the primary interface for both clients and candidates throughout the entire search process."

Ratio Advisors

Locations: New York, Boston, San Francisco

Staff size: 11

Ratio Advisors hires pre-MBA and post-MBA talent, as well as students currently enrolled in MBA programs, for jobs at private-equity firms, hedge funds, and alternative asset managers. The firm is led by Vedica Qalbani, Ratio's CEO and a managing partner, formerly a director in mergers and acquisitions at Time Warner.

Qalbani and fellow managing partners Lindsey Mead and Jessica Wu worked together at Amity Search Partners for several years before breaking off to found a competitor of their own with Ratio in 2017. 

"We function as our clients' outsourced marketing arm" in pitching clients to pre-MBA hopefuls looking to land their first bulge bracket jobs, Ratio says, and notes that it is also active in "a wide range of VP and principal searches."

SearchOne

†Locations: New York

Staff size: 12

Michael Garmisa founded SearchOne in 1998, two years after graduating from Indiana University, and has maintained an exclusive focus on recruiting investment professionals for hedge funds, private equity, and other alternative asset managers.

The firm excels at matching younger candidates with buy-side opportunities, but, like others on this list that have been at it for a couple of decades, long-standing relationships mean they handle ample mandates for senior roles as well.

SearchOne boasts on its website that 80% "of mid- to senior-level candidates placed have been in touch with SearchOne throughout their careers."

SG Partners

Locations: New York

Staff size: 19

Sheri Gellman, the founder of SG Partners, is one of the original talent sourcers of the private-equity industry — she helped popularize the investment-banking to PE pipline in the early 1990s, long before the industry exploded into one of the largest investment asset classes on the planet. 

SG Partners, founded in 1991, remains a top player in that realm today, though Gellman has expanded the remit to include hedge funds, real estate, and investment banking, among other specialties. The firm places candidates across the US and in select international markets as well.  

The company's enduring presence and success has spawned offshoots: Several competing firms cut their teeth at SG Partners before leaving to hang out their own shingle. 

• Insider Intelligence publishes thousands of research reports, charts, and forecasts on the Banking industry. You can learn more about becoming a client here.
• The following is a preview of one Banking report, The US Banking Tech Spend Forecast. You can purchase this report here.

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically reshaped the global economic landscape in a matter of months — and US banks' IT budgets haven't been spared. The US, home to many of the world's biggest banks, is also currently home to the among the highest case numbers and infection rates globally, and its economy shrank by 4.8% in Q1 due to the pandemic. This turmoil is having a direct effect on the US banking industry's digitization plans, and in this report we explore the extent of that impact.

This report is based on eMarketer's US Banking IT/Technology Expenses forecast, compiled in May 2020. In it, we focus on nine of the largest consumer-facing US banks by asset size as of Q1 2020, and how their spending on IT/tech is being affected by the pandemic both in the shorter term and the longer term. In this report, we divide the pandemic's course into three expected phases: Lockdown (early 2020-late 2021); Partial Reopening (late 2021-early 2022); and The New Normal (early 2022-2024 and beyond). In the first half of the report, we give an overview of what each phase will look like and how it will affect US banks as a whole; while in the second half of the report, we look at how each of these nine banks could be affected individually by the pandemic. 

In the US Banking Tech Spend Forecast report, Insider Intelligence explores underlying factors we expect to impact on US banks' IT/tech spending through the entire forecast period, including cybersecurity spending, IT infrastructure maintenance, and economic slowdown; factors specific to each expected phase of the pandemic; and finally factors unique to each of the nine banks included in this forecast. Together, these factors give an overview of how one of the largest banking industries in the world will ride out the biggest economic crisis since 2008. 

The companies mentioned in this report include: Bank of America, Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, KeyBank, PNC, Regions Bank, Truist, US Bank, and Wells Fargo. 

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

• In the first phase of the pandemic, we expect US banks' IT/tech expenses to dip before reaccelerating. 
• In the second phase of the pandemic, we expect banks' expenses to continue on an upward trajectory, albeit a slower one. The YoY growth of banks' tech and IT spend will be essentially flat.
• In the third phase of the pandemic, we expect the coronavirus itself to be eradicated, leaving behind its social and economic aftermath — i.e., the new normal. During this period, banks' IT/tech expenses will increase at a slower pace than in previous years.
• Truist's IT/tech spend will increase most during the forecast period of 2020 to 2024, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.42%. KeyBank will have the lowest CAGR at 0.34%.
• KeyBank will spend the most on IT/tech as a percent of total assets: Its 2020 spend will amount to 1.8% of total assets as of Q1 2020. Citi's 2020 spend will represent the smallest percent of total assets as of Q1 2020, at 0.2%.
• Wells Fargo will have the largest annual IT/tech spend by the end of 2020 at $9.61 billion. It'll be followed by Bank of America with $9.14 billion and JPMorgan Chase with $8.91 billion.

In full, the report:

• Gives an overview of underlying factors that will affect US banks' tech spending through the forecast period.
• Highlights spend growth drivers and inhibitors specific to each of the pandemic's three phases.
• Examines the spend growth drivers and inhibitors unique to each of the nine banks in the forecast, breaking these down into short-term (2019-2020) and the longer term (2021-2024 and beyond).

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• Amex has agreed to acquire Kabbage, the SoftBank-backed small-business lending fintech. 
• Amex is a leader in corporate cards, but is looking to build out its suite of products for businesses, which will now include Kabbage's cash-flow management offering.
• Kabbage and its peers have struggled through the coronavirus pandemic. In April, it halted its small business lending, instead facilitating PPP loans.
• The deal does not include Kabbage's existing book of PPP and other business loans, which Kabbage says will reduce significantly over the next few months as PPP loans are forgiven and its term loans mature.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

On Monday, American Express said it would acquire the Softbank-backed Kabbage, confirming previous reporting from Bloomberg about the deal.

The Amex executive who will be tasked with overseeing Kabbage's integration into the card giant said the recently-announced deal highlights Amex's intentions to build up its offerings to small businesses. 

While Amex has long been a leader in the corporate card business, the deal opens the company up to new lines of business.

Since its launch in 2008, Kabbage has built a fully digital platform for small business credit, and added cash-flow management, banking, and payments products.

"This acquisition will expand our digital class cash-flow management offerings for small businesses," Anna Marrs, president of global commercial services at Amex, told Business Insider.

"We've been working on doing that here at American Express for a few years, recognizing that we have an extremely strong position in commercial small business cards, but knowing that our small business customers need more than the card as they look to manage and grow their business," Marrs said.

Read more: SoftBank-backed fintech Kabbage is making a grab at small businesses disillusioned by big banks' PPP rollout by launching its own checking accounts

Marrs oversees all of Amex's business-focused products. Kabbage's leadership team will report into Marrs once the deal closes.

"Our vision and mission has always been to help small businesses focus on the things they do well and really give them the financial tools they need to manage cash flow over time," Rob Frohwein, cofounder and CEO of Kabbage, told Business Insider.

"The opportunity to join Amex is just an incredible one in that we can really accelerate that vision tremendously," Frohwein said.

Kabbage has raised $500 million in equity funding from investors including BlueRun Ventures and SoftBank. Including its rounds of debt financing, the startup has raised $2.5 billion to date and was last valued around $1.2 billion following its $250 million Series F led by SoftBank in 2017.

While the terms of the deal were not disclosed, Bloomberg previously reported Amex could be paying as much as $850 million for Kabbage.

That type of drop in valuation would speak to the hardships small businesses, and those who serve them, have faced in recent months.

Kabbage halted its usual lending in April, instead facilitating the SBA's Paycheck Protection Program loans.

And while Kabbage has not resumed its lending operations. Its competitor OnDeck did, but was unable to recover fully from COVID-related losses earlier this year, eventually getting acquired by Enova in July for $1.38 per share. OnDeck shares were trading around $4 in February before the pandemic.

Amex is eyeing Kabbage's tech, leaving its existing book of loans behind

While Kabbage got its start in small business credit, it's been building out new products to help it become much more than a lender.

Last year, Kabbage launched a payments service that features invoice tracking and the ability for businesses to send customers links to get paid electronically. In February, it expanded its lending business to include shorter-term loans, leveraging that payments data to make credit decisions.

And in July, it rolled out business checking accounts, adding yet another layer to its cash flow management platform. 

And it appears those new offerings are what Amex is most keen to integrate. Per the structure of the acquisition, Amex won't be taking Kabbage's existing book of loans, which includes a book of PPP loans and an ABS book of small business loans issued before the pandemic.

For Amex, this acquisition is about the fintech's tech, its loan underwriting data, and team at Kabbage, Marrs said.

"Kabbage has an innovative and talented team that's built around small businesses," said Marrs, "and we're excited to work together, bring that team inside American Express, and deliver these solutions together to both of our customer bases."

Kabbage itself is not a bank, so, like many other fintechs, its loans and banking products are offered through partnerships with banks like Green Dot and Celtic Bank. Amex already has a business lending platform through which it offers loans and working capital.

Read more: Experts explain the complexities around getting PPP loans forgiven, and why so many small businesses are turning to fintechs like PayPal and Plaid

"Our loan portfolio is made up of loans that have very short duration," said Frohwein. "The vast majority of that will reduce in size over the coming months."

Kabbage has facilitated around $7 billion in PPP loans for nearly 300,000 small businesses, most of which Kabbage expects to be forgiven, Frohwein said. Before the pandemic, Kabbage offered both short-term loans (three to 45 days) and longer-term loans offered for 6, 12, and 18 month terms.

"The complexity of trying to bring the full loan portfolio along with the transaction didn't make sense," Frohwein said. "It made sense for us to keep that in a separate entity and provide the servicing within that entity for the portfolio so the customers could have a fully consistent experience."

As it integrates Kabbage's tech into its stack, Amex is planning to roll out small-business focused products in the first half of 2021, Marrs said. But product-specific details around branding, for one, are still in the works.

"There are a lot of things we love about the Kabbage brand: its small business focus, its hustle and entrepreneurial bent," said Marrs. "But American Express also has a very large brand."

"It's the world's most valuable financial services brand by some metrics. It's a brand that for a long time advocated and stood for small businesses, so we'll have to figure out how we get the best of both."

Read more

POWER PLAYERS: Meet 11 American Express execs leading the card giant's digital payments and small-business lending push

The head of Amex Digital Labs lays out the card giant's innovation strategy, and explains why the future is partnering with tech giants like Apple and Google

SEE ALSO: Experts explain the complexities around getting PPP loans forgiven, and why so many small businesses are turning to fintechs like PayPal and Plaid

SEE ALSO: SoftBank-backed fintech Kabbage is making a grab at small businesses disillusioned by big banks' PPP rollout by launching its own checking accounts

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• Apple is expected to soon become the first US-listed company with a $2 trillion market capitalization, a milestone that would come two years after the company first passed the $1 trillion mark.
• Such an achievement speaks to Apple's ability to build a solid ecosystem around its products, transforming its business into one that was once reliant on hardware sales to one increasingly driven by add-ons like services and accessories.
• Aside from Apple's burgeoning wearables and services businesses, Apple is expected to be on the cusp of its biggest iPhone upgrade cycle in years with the introduction of its first 5G iPhone.
• The only other company to ever reach the market value milestone was Saudi Aramco, which briefly held a $2 trillion valuation in December.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Apple is poised to soon become the first United States-listed company to hit a $2 trillion market capitalization, a milestone that would put it in a select group and set it on track to become the most valuable public company ever. The iPhone maker passed the $1 trillion mark for the first time roughly two years ago. (At end of trading on Tuesday, Apple's market value was $1.98 trillion.) 

To do so, Apple stock would have to trade at $467.77, as CNBC points out, after closing at $462.25 on Tuesday.

The achievement is evidence that Apple's strategy of morphing itself into more than just the iPhone company by branching out into digital entertainment and financial services is paying off — even during a global pandemic. 

That Apple's wearables and services segments have so quickly become such important parts of the company's business also underscores Apple's biggest advantage and part of what makes it so valuable: the loyalty of its customers. 

An AlphaWise study from 2017, for example, found that 92% of iPhone users surveyed who were "somewhat or extremely likely" to upgrade in the next 12 months planned to stick with the iPhone. 

"When a new user starts to use Apple's smartphones, it tends to stay on Apple's smartphones," Jeriel Ong, an equity research analyst at Deutsche Bank, said in an interview with Business Insider. "Apple tends to be stickier and that tends to be valued more."

That loyalty, and many of the company's business decisions over the past decade, may be how Apple found its way to such an exclusive club. Saudi Aramco, the gargantuan oil conglomerate, is the only other publicly traded company to ever reach a $2 trillion valuation, briefly grazing the milestone in December 2019.

Apple has proved it's not a one-trick pony

The stickiness of Apple's customer base has become more important than ever in recent years as the company has increasingly leaned on services and wearables to make up for slowing iPhone sales. 

Apple's services segment, which includes newer offerings like Apple TV Plus and the Apple Card, as well as revenue from the App Store and Apple Care, is now its second-largest product segment behind the iPhone as of its fiscal third-quarter of 2020. Apple's services grew by 15% year-over-year and set a record for the June quarter.

Since the launch of the Apple Watch in 2015 and AirPods in 2016, Apple has also grown to lead the global market for wearable devices. The International Data Corporation reported that the company shipped more wearable devices than rivals like Xiaomi, Samsung, Huawei, and Fitbit in the first quarter of 2020. 

Apple said in April 2019 that its wearables division alone was the size of a Fortune 200 company, and in its fiscal third-quarter its wearables, home, and accessories segment generated $6.4 billion in revenue, up from $5.5 billion one year ago.

That's especially critical considering Apple's wearables business barely existed five years ago, Ong said.

Such growth has given Wall Street confidence that there's plenty of room for Apple to grow even if iPhone sales are stagnant, easing concerns that Apple has become too reliant on its smartphone business. 

Aside from the direct impact Apple's wearables and services segments have had on the company's business, they also strengthen Apple's ecosystem — making it much more difficult for an iPhone user to switch to Android.

Apple's better-than-expected performance in its fiscal third quarter of 2020 also showed Wall Street that Apple's products are valuable enough to its customer base that people are even willing to spend money on them during a pandemic, buoyed in part by Apple's newest low-cost $400 iPhone SE. 

"It really solidified, I think, through this period, how high of a priority Apple's products can tend to be in a consumer spending wallet," Ong said. "And that resilience came through in their numbers in the latest quarter."

A 5G 'supercycle' is coming 
 

Apple spent the last few years proving it could grow in new ways that didn't involve breaking iPhone sales records. But even so, 2020 is shaping up to be a breakout year for the iPhone. 

Apple is widely expected to release its first 5G iPhone models later this year, a launch that many analysts had expected would bring Apple's iPhone business back to growth after several quarterly declines.

Daniel Ives, an analyst for Wedbush Securities, has called the launch a "once in a decade" opportunity for Apple. That's because the addition of 5G as well as other improvements could give current iPhone owners more of an incentive to upgrade compared to previous years. He also predicts that 350 million iPhones are in the window of an upgrade opportunity this year.

"Those forces combined really make this a supercycle," Ives told Business Insider. 

That resurgence in iPhone upgrades combined with Apple's booming wearables and services businesses are setting the stage for what appears to be a banner year for Apple — all factors that hinge on Apple's ability to keep its users locked into its ecosystem. 

After all, an iPhone owner with AirPods and an Apple Watch would have to invest a significant amount of money to get a similar experience in the Android ecosystem. 

"The more of these products that people are tacking on, it kind of communicates this idea that the iPhone ecosystem is a little more safe," Ong said. "And that kind of resonates with investors as well."

SEE ALSO: In a rare move from Apple, the new iPhone 12 could be cheaper than most other 5G phones

Join the conversation about this story »

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• Amex is acquiring SMB alt lender Kabbage.
• The acquisition will bolster its credit assessment capabilities and give it an advantage over other legacy players.

• Insider Intelligence publishes hundreds of research reports, charts, and forecasts on the Banking industry with the Banking Briefing. You can learn more about subscribing here.

American Express (Amex) is acquiring the small- and medium-sized business (SMB) alt lender's tech, products, and employees for an undisclosed price, though reports have placed it as high as $850 million, per Bloomberg.

Kabbage's full product suite will be integrated with Amex's on one online platform, through which Amex's SMB customers can better manage their cash flow and access working capital. The payments giant won't absorb Kabbage's existing loan portfolio, which includes its $7 billion in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans; the portfolio will be managed by a separate entity, according to TechCrunch. 

Incumbent banks have fallen short of meeting SMBs' lending needs — but the Kabbage acquisition could give Amex a major advantage over its legacy counterparts: 

• Many incumbent lenders rely on outdated risk assessment methods that aren't reflective of SMBs' specific needs. Incumbent banks have long struggled to find the optimal balance between efficiently serving SMBs and delivering the customer experience that SMBs require. In assessing creditworthiness of loan applicants, their lengthy application and evaluation processes instead use risk frameworks that either fit large businesses or individual borrowers. Additionally, they take data points into consideration that don't appropriately show a company's financial situation — like the founder's credit score, which isn't always representative of a company's financial health. Meanwhile, alt lenders have sprung up to fill the gap by utilizing a greater variety of data inputs to build a more holistic view of an SMB's financial status and more accurately assess credit risk, rather than making the lending decision solely based on credit score.
• Amex will gain access to Kabbage's proprietary machine learning algorithm to better identify creditworthy SMBs — and at a key time. Kabbage leverages a wide range of third-party data to assess creditworthiness, including traditional accounting statements, social media signals, and e-commerce transactions. Its real-time credit decisions cut down the application process to less than 10 minutes. By acquiring that technology, Amex can offer working capital solutions that are better tailored to SMBs than they may be able to find with an incumbent competitor. And Amex is bolstering its capabilities at an opportune time. Despite the recent close of the PPP, SMBs have an ongoing need for capital to sustain their businesses through the economic downturn: 44% of SMBs say they'll be unable to survive another six months without additional funding.

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• The S&P 500 and Nasdaq's new record highs show how divorced the stock market is from the economy, Jim Cramer said on Tuesday.
• "The S&P's new highs are a tale told by an idiot," the "Mad Money" host said during his show.
• Cramer dismissed the idea that the market recovery reflects a V-shaped economic recovery, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average would have rebounded too in that case.
• "The winners in this market are the companies that are most divorced from the underlying economy," Cramer said.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

  ---

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq's record closes on Tuesday highlight the stark disconnect between the stock market and the economy, according to Jim Cramer.

"The S&P's new highs are a tale told by an idiot," the host of "Mad Money" on CNBC said during his show on Tuesday.

"Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing about the hardship of millions of people on food stamps, or the millions about to be fired from service jobs, or the homeless, or the people who are just huddled at home waiting for the vaccine," he continued.

The S&P 500 closed at 3,390 points on Tuesday, notching its first record close since February 19 and marking the shortest bear market since 1929, according to CNBC. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq closed at 11,211 — a striking rebound given it traded below 7,000 at its lowest point in April, an increase of some 60%.

Cramer said it was "not just wrong but actually laughable" that the indexes' fresh highs reflect a "V-shaped" economic recovery. The Dow Jones Industrial Average would have rebounded too if that were true, he continued, yet the index is still down about 4% this year.

"We've had a magnificent V-shaped recovery in the stock market, but the stock market's not a great reflection of the broader economy anymore," the former hedge fund manager said.

"The actual economy's in precarious shape, especially now that the government's stimulus package has run out and Congress went home for the summer rather than trying to come up with a replacement," he added.

Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, and other tech stocks have spearheaded the stock-market recovery this year. Financial, industrial, retail, leisure, and other stocks have lagged behind, as investors fear slower economic growth, lockdowns, and travel restrictions will hammer earnings for months to come.

"The winners in this market are the companies that are most divorced from the underlying economy," Cramer said. 

Join the conversation about this story »

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