An Analysis of Finance Category Market Trends and Top Apps

Condensed Version

The State of Fintech Apps

This report is an analysis of the Finance categories on the Apple App Store and Google Play. It includes download trends along with rankings of top apps from Q1 2017 through Q2 2020.

In this report, we classified top apps into subcategories for further analysis:

● Mobile Payment Apps: Apps to send and receive money, such as Venmo, Cash App, and PayPal.

● Asset Management Apps: Apps with a focus on investing or saving, like Robinhood, Acorns, and TD Ameritrade.

● Mobile Banking Apps: Apps for mobile banking (includes traditional/digital banks).

● Payment Solution Apps: Apps that allow shoppers to “buy now, pay later,” including Klarna, Afterpay, and Affirm.

Other subcategories of Finance apps include:

● Credit / Debit Card Apps: Apps for credit card companies, such as Discover and Amex, as well as debit and prepaid cards like BofA Prepaid

● Credit Score Apps: Apps for monitoring credit scores like Credit Karma and Experian. ● Insurance Apps: Apps for insurance companies including GEICO, Progressive, and Allstate.

● Budgeting Apps: Apps for budgeting/personal finance like Mint, Digit, and Albert.

The State of Fintech Apps: Introduction

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The State of Fintech Apps report offers analysis on the latest trends for the category:

The State of Fintech Apps: Table of Contents

Market Overview - Worldwide: A look at top apps and countries on the App Store and Google Play

Market Overview - United States: Finance download trends in the U.S., including subcategory trends

Market Overview - Europe: Finance apps in Europe, highlighting top apps and countries

Mobile Payment Apps: U.S. download trends for Mobile Payment apps and the impact of COVID-19

Asset Management Apps: U.S. download trends for Asset Management apps

Mobile Banking Apps: U.S. trends for Mobile Banking apps and a look at top neobanks in the U.K.

Payment Solution Apps: A look at the emergence of Payment Solution apps in various regions

Advertising Trends: Top advertisers and the latest trends in advertising for Finance apps

Conclusion: Key takeaways from the report

4.

10.

15.

21.

31.

39.

50.

57.

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Worldwide Finance Download Trends

Finance app download growth remained strong globally in early 2020. Consumers continued to flock to their mobile devices for financial needs, from mobile payment and investing to traditional banking.

Google Play drove the majority of Finance download growth in 2Q20, with 51 percent growth Y/Y compared to 8 percent on the App Store. A few top markets drove this trend, with Brazil’s Finance installs increasing by more than 100M Y/Y on Google Play while China’s Finance downloads dropped by nearly 50M (27 percent Y/Y) on the App Store.

Market Overview

Quarterly downloads of Finance apps on the App Store and Google Play

0

200M

400M

600M

800M

1.0B

1.2B

1.4B

Q1 2017

Q2 2017

Q3 2017

Q4 2017

Q1 2018

Q2 2018

Q3 2018

Q4 2018

Q1 2019

Q2 2019

Q3 2019

Q4 2019

Q1 2020

Q2 2020

840M

763M710M652M

557M545M524M458M

404M417M392M

326M

278M308M

395M362M377M367M365M351M355M350M343M334M333M286M245M255M

App Store Google Play

+43%

+23%

+34%

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Top U.S. Finance Apps by Downloads

Market Overview

Most installed Finance apps on the U.S. App Store and Google Play by year

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Cash App Square

Venmo PayPal

PayPal PayPal

Sweatcoin SweatCo.in

Credit Karma Credit Karma

Capital One Capital One

Bank of America Bank of America

Chase JPMorgan Chase

Wells Fargo Wells Fargo

Zelle Early Warning Services

-

-2

NEW

-1

+2

-

NEW

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

2018

-1

-3

-

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Cash App Square

Venmo PayPal

PayPal PayPal

Robinhood Robinhood

IRS2Go Internal Revenue Service

Credit Karma Credit Karma

Turbo Tax Return Intuit

Zelle Early Warning Services

Bank of America Bank of America

Fresh EBT Propel

H1 2020

NEW

-3

NEW

NEW

-

-

-

-1

NEW

-2

Cash App Square

Venmo PayPal

PayPal PayPal

Credit Karma Credit Karma

Zelle Early Warning Services

Capital One Capital One

Chase JPMorgan Chase

Bank of America Bank of America

Wells Fargo Wells Fargo

Sweatcoin SweatCo.in

-6

-1

+1

+1

-

-

-1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

2019

-

+5

-

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Cash App Square

PayPal PayPal

Credit Karma Credit Karma

Venmo PayPal

Chase JPMorgan Chase

Capital One Capital One

Bank of America Bank of America

Wells Fargo Wells Fargo

Coinbase Coinbase

GEICO GEICO

2017

Download growth in the 60 days following 200th confirmed case of COVID-19 in the U.S.

U.S. Download Growth Following COVID-19

Mobile Payment

The impact of COVID-19 accelerated growth for Asset Management, Credit Card, Cryptocurrency, and Mobile Payment apps. As lockdown orders altered consumers’ lifestyles and limited in-person contact, more users turned to mobile apps for their finance needs.

Tax Filing and Budgeting apps saw a major drop in downloads amid the pandemic. Seasonal trends likely explain the bulk of this decrease, as tax season and New Year’s resolutions typically boost downloads these types of apps early each year.

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Asset Management

Credit Card

Cryptocurrency

Insurance

Mobile Banking

Payment Solution

Credit Scores

Taxes

Budgeting

-40% -30% -20% -10% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40%

18.3%

-32.1%

-25.4%

-11.5%

-5.6%

1.0%

2.1%

20.9%

22.4%

32.3%

Note Regarding Growth Estimates Data is from the App Store only. Growth is calculated comparing the downloads of the top 150 Finance apps in the first 60 days following the 200th confirmed case of COVID-19 versus the previous 60 days.

Mobile Payment

2.1%

1.0%

Download growth of top Mobile Payment apps before and after the 200th confirmed case

U.S. COVID-19 Impact on Mobile Payment App

Square’s Cash App saw downloads increase to more than 55 percent above the pre-COVID-19 period in the 60 days after the 200th confirmed case, the highest growth any Mobile Payment app has made during the pandemic.

Downloads for most Mobile Payment apps peaked in April or May. While growth mostly slowed in the following months, downloads for all five apps remained above pre-COVID-19 levels by July.

Mobile Payment

-10%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

Jan 2020Feb

MarApr

MayJun Jul

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Cash App Venmo PayPal Google Pay Zelle

Note Regarding Growth Estimates Growth is calculated comparing the downloads from March through July to the average monthly downloads between January and February.

200th confirmed case in the U.S.

Cash App

Google Pay

Venmo

PayPal

Zelle

0

100K

200K

300K

400K

500K

12/31/18

1/28/19

2/25/19

3/25/19

4/22/19

5/20/19

6/17/19

7/15/19

8/12/199/9/19

10/7/19

11/4/19

12/2/19

12/30/19

1/27/20

2/24/20

3/23/20

4/20/20

5/18/20

6/15/20

Weekly downloads on the U.S. App Store

Case Study: Robinhood

Robinhood experienced a massive surge in downloads during the first half of 2020. The initial increase in early 2020 corresponded with an advertising push on a variety of networks including TikTok, ironSource, and AdMob.

Robinhood also capitalized on the market volatility surrounding the coronavirus in March, seeing weekly U.S. App Store downloads surpass 400K in consecutive weeks. It also added fractional shares investing, continuing its trend towards making investing more inclusive.

Asset Management

Robinhood

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Nov. 2019 - Feb. 2020 Robinhood made an advertising push on a variety of networks, including TikTok, AdMob, ironSource, and Unity

Mar. 2020 - Jun. 2020 Market volatility following the spread of COVID-19 led to a surge in Robinhood’s downloads in the U.S.

May 2020 Announced fractional shares investing in the app following an initial roll-out in December 2019

Proportion of U.S. downloads from Traditional vs. Digital banks among the top 100 Finance apps

Traditional vs. Digital Bank Market Share

Digital banks have taken off in the U.S. since 2017, seeing their share of the mobile banking market increase from one percent in 2017 to 25 percent in the first half of 2020. These apps had 8.5 million U.S. downloads in 1H20, with Chime alone accounting for 4.2 million.

Although most of the decrease in market share from traditional banks was due to new competition from digital banks, download growth for traditional banks has stagnated in the U.S. The top five traditional banking apps combined for just 2 percent Y/Y growth in 1H20.

Mobile Banking

2017

2018

2019

H1 2020

0% 25% 50% 75% 100%

25%

21%

14%

1%

75%

79%

86%

99%

Traditional Digital

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1%

The State of Fintech Apps: There’s More!

The full State of Fintech Apps report is available exclusively to Sensor Tower Enterprise customers. Request the full report from our sales team (sales@sensortower.com):

Additional Insights in the Full Fintech Report (58 more pages)

• Top Finance Apps and Top Countries

• A Market Overview of Finance Apps in the U.S. and Europe

• A Summary of Mobile Payment, Asset Management, Mobile Banking, and Payment Solution apps

• Advertising Trends for Top Finance Apps

• And more!

Request the Full Fintech Report

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Modification, republication, distribution, or other unauthorized usage violate this copyright, unless express permission has been granted.

App icons, images, and other branding assets are property of their respective publishers and are used expressly for the purpose of editorial commentary.

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