8. Paul Finch, Early Warning/Zelle

Someone has to be applauded for the arrival of Zelle, and it should probably be Paul Finch: the man who heads the parent company behind the purple giant currently taking on Venmo and other P2P services. Finch’s pivot of the network, from Early Warning, a security service, to picking up the payments firm clearXchange, then inventing a new brand entirely with the shorter (and much easier to type) Zelle began years ago, but it was in 2017 that we really saw the rise of the network.

In fact, it seems like we talked about Zelle –the “perfect complement” for an FI, according to Finch— at least once a month, as the service added partnerships, banks, and payment processors to its network, culminating in the release of its standalone mobile app for customers just this month. What will it all mean for Venmo, Square Cash and the banks?

9. Andrei Cherny, Aspiration

Andrei Cherny is looking to serve the growing number of consumers that are becoming more money-conscious: not just about where they’re spending their money, but about where that money eventually winds up going. Cherny’s “social conscious” bank/investment service, Aspiration, created a number of new tools for this purpose over the first half of 2017, and customers responded.

The investment service launched its “impact measure” feature in May, which allows consumers to see economic and environmental impacts of their spend, and following that, Cherny took socially conscious banking one step forward when Aspiration launched its Redwood investment fund in August. The sustainable nature of the fund is in theme with its financial business model; investors “pay what is fair” to Aspiration, because, as Cherny noted back in August, “we’ve found that a lot of people don’t feel like they don’t have a financial partner when they invest.”

10. Zach Perret, Plaid

If FIs want to move towards a future of open banking, the industry is going to need a little help from APIs, which is why Zach Perret has been firmly entrenching his startup, Plaid, into the financial ecosystem over the course of the year.

Perret’s company provides APIs to financial institutions for speedier, more efficient, and well, more modern financial solutions, and Perret has been continuing that goal all through 2017. Perret describes Plaid as “the middle layer between you and your bank,” and it’s a middle layer determined to create a more open financial world.

Just this year, Perret has retained that focus as Plaid has partnered with industry titans like Dwolla for better payments, among others, and has recently launched a new SDK tool to allow enterprises the ability to build banking functionality into their applications.

11. Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase

Oh, we just had to. For better or for worse, Dimon did what he does best in 2017: make an impact. Under Dimon, JPMorgan Chase has steadily increased its mobile banking users, left old blockchain projects, started new blockchain projects, invested heavily in fintech deals, and moved forward with new partnerships.

Moreover, Dimon’s individual opinions have had a significant impact on fintech companies themselves (his recent remarks on bitcoin caused a minor wobble in the cryptocurrency’s value, if some are to be believed), and there’s no sign that Dimon is going to tether himself or his bank to less innovative standards any time soon.

Innovative CEOs 4 to 7 | Innovative CEOs 1 to 3