First, we sent questionnaires to more than 40,000 of our contacts at technology companies; more than 400 responded. Next, several publicly available resources, including company filings and Web sites, were searched to validate the data, as well as to provide alternative sources of information when needed.
Financial Insights also used its own research and databases, as well as those of its parent, International Data Group Inc.
Many companies in the rankings are privately held, or could not provide the financial data required. For them, Financial Insights relied on its analysts for estimates of the revenue derived from sales of technology to financial services. In instances where publicly reported revenue included extraordinary items, the revenue number used in the FinTech rankings may differ from publicly reported data. For these cases, revenue derived from sales to the financial services industry was estimated by Financial Insights.
Two categories of companies were ranked:
The FinTech 100 includes vendors that derive more than one-third of their revenue from the financial services industry.
The top 25 enterprise companies in FinTech are horizontal technology firms that sell products and provide support services across multiple industries.
In all rankings, revenue from network, telecommunications, electronic exchange, and data was not counted because these business lines fall outside the definition we used to define financial technologies.
Some companies that might have been excluded as data providers or credit bureaus (such as Reuters and First Data) had a significant revenue component tied to software, hardware, or services that normally would be counted in these rankings. They were therefore included, but only that portion of their revenue was counted.
Units of companies were included as stand-alone entities only if they are legally independent subsidiaries. When these are listed, only the revenue that could be attributed to the subsidiary was reported. (The parent company may also be ranked, with the total value of its financial services revenue — including the subsidiary's — used to calculate its ranking.)
Financial Insights and American Banker made a concerted effort to include all possible candidates in the rankings. Some companies may have been excluded because of insufficient revenue from financial services, or insufficient revenue in the appropriate category, or because we could not validate their revenue data.
Calendar year revenue, rather than fiscal year revenue, is used to ensure that all companies are ranked fairly. For companies reporting revenue in foreign currencies, we calcualted U.S. dollar figures using International Data's standard blended exchange rate based on the 2006 calendar year.
