• Baiju Bhatt and Vlad Tenev, Robinhood

The commission-free trading startup Robinhood may be the most talked-about fintech company in banking circles. Heads spun when it announced in December its plan to offer no-fee checking and savings accounts that pay a 3% interest rate. Heads spun the next day, too, when the head of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, a federally mandated nonprofit organization that protects investors from losses at member brokerage firms, said the new products proposed by Robinhood would not be protected as the startup had promised its customers. Robinhood co-founders and co-CEOs Bhatt and Tenev later acknowledged the announcement “may have caused some confusion” and changed the name of their product to a “cash management” service. This was after nearly 700,000 people had signed up for the waiting list for the other iteration of the product. Robinhood’s valuation had climbed from $1.3 billion in 2017 to $5.6 billion when it raised $363 million this year. Bhatt gave away his and Tenev’s secret to success in a CNBC article earlier this year: “We both skip breakfast and we stop eating at 8:00 p.m. every night. It’s not the easiest thing to keep up on vacations but during the week we try to do that.” Depending on how Robinhood customers, and regulators, interpret the checking and savings account situation, these co-founders could very well find their way onto our “5 People to Watch in 2019″ list as well.

• Cathy Bessant, Bank of America

The chief operations and technology officer at Bank of America has been among the most vocal officials in the industry advocating for the ethical use of new technologies like artificial intelligence. In order to help companies explore legal, moral and policy implications, and investigate ways of building responsible AI platforms, Bessant helped start the Council on the Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence at Harvard University in April. Just a month prior, Bessant and her team had launched Erica, BofA’s AI-powered virtual assistant, which now has over 4 million users. “Many banks describe themselves as a technology company,” Bessant said at the American Bankers Association conference in New York in October. “But really we use technology to provide customers solutions, and Erica enables us to provide a one-on-one customizable experience to the customer.”

Senior editor Philip Ryan contributed to this list.

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