LendingTree's Lebda top-paid US fintech, payments CEO in 2020

Douglas Lebda of LendingTree Inc. earned $52.0 million in total compensation in 2020, making him the highest-paid CEO in the U.S financial technology industry by more than $20 million.

Lebda's compensation grew by over 400% year over year as his stock option award skyrocketed to $50.3 million, up from $7.5 million in 2019. According to Lending Tree's proxy statement filed in April, 70% of the option awards are performance-based, while the other 30% are time-based. Both will serve as Lebda's long-term incentive compensation through 2023. In addition, all of the options have a minimum exercise price at least 25% higher than Lending Tree's stock price at the grant date.

Meanwhile, GoHealth Inc.'s Clinton Jones received the second-most in total compensation in the fintech space at $31.7 million, largely due to $30.4 million in stock grants. Jones' compensation jumped 577.9% year over year.

GoHealth's stock has struggled since its initial public offering in July 2020, losing 56.5% as of July 29, 2021, compared to a 40.4% return for the S&P 500 over the same time period.

Ajaypal Banga of Mastercard Inc. earned $27.8 million in total compensation in 2020, making him the highest-paid CEO of a U.S. payments company and one of five CEOs in the industry to receive at least $20 million in compensation.

The second-highest-paid CEO, Alfred Kelly of Visa Inc., received $26.4 million in compensation for the company's fiscal 2020, which ended on Sept. 30, 2020.

Gary Norcross of Fidelity National Information Services Inc., 2019's highest-paid CEO in the payments industry, saw his compensation drop 35.3% to $17.9 million in 2020.