Which Fintechs Are Gaining Ground?

"Being the newcomer in an industry that is often plagued by 'gotcha' fees and with the lowest levels of trust among consumers is not an easy task for fintechs, and is a reason why aligning incentives with consumers' real needs is crucial for success," Tilman Ehrbeck, partner at Omidyar Network, says in a statement.

Ehrbeck adds, "Embedding this principle early in the business culture is key to building and retaining consumer trust over time, a lesson that, if put in practice from the get-go, will avoid fixing fundamentals later."

Breaking down revenue models into what value is created, who will pay for it and how they'll do that, the report examines eight payment models already in use to identify what they're doing right.

Currently, it finds, 65% of fintechs charge consumers directly for their services; about 75% of them rely on a single source of revenue, while a quarter have multiple sources of income. Not only has the latter group raised more than twice as much investor funding, but the ones that have raised the most funding to date "build a lower cost (and often better) version of an existing financial product that consumers already pay for today, not a new solution with an unfamiliar value proposition."