8. Tom Blomfield, Monzo

In this age of fintech-rules-it-all, nobody (hopefully) needs an explainer on what a neobank is. U.K. specifically has been an epicenter of the mobile-first banks, with Atom Bank, Starling Bank, Tandem Bank and Monzo as the main players. So why single out Monzo? Well, customer retention rate for this startup has been nothing short of impressive. Monzo said it has 65,000 debit users, and the bank has not yet officially launched. The company’s CEO Tom Blomfield told Bank Innovation that Monzo’s initial goal is 300,000 users post launch – first quarter 2017 – and 1 million users shortly after that.

Monzo will also launch an overdraft credit product in 2017, Blomfield said, and will offer customers the option to tap into a whole menu of fintech products, including TransferWise for remittances, Nutmeg for savings, and SoFi for student loans.  “We have aspirations,” Blomfield said. Launched last year, the bank raised $17.7 million in four rounds of funding to date.

9. Suresh Ramamurthi, CBW Bank

You can hardly find a list of innovative bankers without Suresh Ramamurthi’s name on it.  A member of Google’s payments team, Ramamurthi acquired the struggling bank in the middle of Kansas and began exploring ways to improve its old-school payments infrastructure. He soon faced a challenge: none of the bank’s vendors were able to provide the necessary tools that Ramamurthi needed for his grand plan. So what did he do? Launched his own tech startup, Yantra Financial Technologies to help speed up the innovation process.

Eventually, Ramamurthi, managed to build an entirely new payments infrastructure for CBW, making it one of the first banks to allow for realtime payments. It then offered the service to other banks and fintech companies. Some of the early partners included Ripple, Moven, and Omney. This year, Yantra also launched Y-Labs Marketplace (http://www.ylabs.io/), a platform for companies to build applications off the CBW API library, the index of which runs more than 18 pages long., Ramamurthi virtually transformed an unknown community bank into a global innovation hub.

10. Carey Kolaja, Citi FinTech  

(CEO-To-Be?)
Since Citi Fintech is yet to announce its permanent replacement to ex-CEO Heather Cox, we will make our best bet.

In the tug of war for talent between Wall Street and Silicon Valley, Citigroup definitely won by hiring a 10-year PayPal veteran Carey Kolaja. Following numerous promotions, Kolaja was the VP of global consumer products before Citi snatched her last year to lead product development at the brand new Citi Fintech – the bank’s unit dedicated to the development of mobile banking services. Fast forward one year, and Citi Fintech has finally released its product:  a new mobile experience for Citigold card members that allows them to buy and sell funds and equities.

The app allows for logins via Touch ID and voice commands. It also lets users transfer funds between Citi accounts, and relationship managers can be called with a single click from within the app. To develop the new app, the fintech unit collaborated with partner startups, as well as Citigold members themselves, in order to keep with Citi Fintech’s customer-oriented mandate. The intent of the app, Kolaja said, is to provide a more personalized experience from already existing features. 

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