FinTech, a shorthand for financial technology, has been one of the strongest areas of the stock market over the past year and decade. Different parts of the financial economy are being disrupted by technology with all sorts of use cases. The most well-known provide consumers with more choice and value at lower costs with more speed and transparency. Examples include banking apps, personal finance tools, robo-advisors, commission-free trading, and mobile payments. Even cryptocurrencies are a version of finech.

There's a tremendous opportunity to help businesses as well. Corporate spending on fintech is expected to increase by 20% in 2020 with double-digit spending growth expected over the next decade. Over the last three years, venture capital investors have poured in more than $100 billion into early-stage fintech companies. Given that this sector remains in growth mode, investors remain focused on metrics like gross margins, revenue growth, and total market size rather than valuation metrics.

Two promising stocks in this space include PayPal (PYPL  ) and Square (SQ  ). Both of these companies have the potential to follow the trajectory of Mastercard (MA  ), and Visa (V  ) to become multi-decade winners. Most fintech stocks are at or near their all-time highs and look poised to continue higher in the coming weeks and months. The success of these stocks shows that they have been successful in making financial services cheaper, faster, more efficient, and accessible.

Paypal

PayPal's stock is up more than 200% since it made its public debut in September 2016. It essentially consolidated in a tight range between $100 and $120 since May 2019. It's now threatening a breakout above $122. Traders should consider buying this breakout as there's a good chance of follow-through.

The stock has the ideal characteristics for this growth-obsessed, market environment. The company will more than double earnings per share over the next 12 months, and its revenue 17% on a year over year pace. It also has 44% gross margins and is a dominant, entrenched player in the online payment space which will expand faster than the overall economy in the coming years.

Square

Like PayPal, Square creates important tools for businesses in the financial realm. Since topping in late-2018, Square's stock has been trading between $100 and $50 in a wide range. Currently, it's at $80 and has been working on building the right side of its base. Traders should consider getting long with a stop around $76.5.

On a shorter-term timeframe, the stock is coming out of another consolidation zone between $60 and $80 since June 2019. Some reasons to believe in Square over the short and intermediate-term are its healthy 8% short float, 43% sales growth, and 53% EPS growth. This growth pace comes with a healthy 40% gross margin.