Fractional CTO for FinTech and Payment Services

Building secure, compliant, and scalable financial technologies. Expert guidance on payments, lending, banking infrastructure, fraud detection, and regulatory compliance.

Challenge

FinTech challenges

Security and fraud: protection from sophisticated attacks, fraud prevention
Regulatory compliance: PCI-DSS, SOC2, KYC/AML, GDPR, regional regulations
Reliability requirements: 99.99%+ uptime, zero data loss, disaster recovery
Payment processing: integration with payment gateways, reconciliation and failed transaction handling
Real-time operations: instant payments, real-time balance updates, fraud detection
Data security: encryption, tokenization, secure key management

Audit trails: immutable transaction logs, compliance reporting
Scale and performance: handling peak loads (paydays, tax season, market events)
Security and fraud: protection from sophisticated attacks, fraud prevention
Regulatory compliance: PCI-DSS, SOC2, KYC/AML, GDPR, regional regulations
Reliability requirements: 99.99%+ uptime, zero data loss, disaster recovery

Payment processing: integration with payment gateways, reconciliation and failed transaction handling
Real-time operations: instant payments, real-time balance updates, fraud detection
Data security: encryption, tokenization, secure key management
Audit trails: immutable transaction logs, compliance reporting
Scale and performance: handling peak loads (paydays, tax season, market events)

How I help

Secure architecture and infrastructure

Security-first design for financial systems

Secure design: defense in depth, least privilege, zero trust
Data encryption: at rest and in transit, key management, tokenization
Payment infrastructure: reliable payment processing and transaction reconciliation
High availability: multi-region, failover, disaster recovery (RPO/RTO)
API security: OAuth2, API gateways, rate limits, DDoS protection
Database design: ACID compliance, transaction integrity, audit logs

Compliance and regulations

Navigating complex regulatory requirements

PCI-DSS compliance: Level 1-4 requirements, SAQ completion
SOC2 Type II: control implementation, audit preparation
KYC/AML implementation: identity verification, sanctions screening
GDPR/CCPA: data privacy, consent management, right to deletion
Banking regulations: FFIEC guidelines, OCC, state requirements
Audit trails: immutable logs, automated compliance reporting

Fraud detection and prevention

Multi-layered protection against financial fraud

Real-time fraud detection: ML models for transaction monitoring
Risk scoring: user behavior analysis, anomaly detection
Identity verification: document verification, biometrics, fake detection
Transaction monitoring: suspicious activity detection and reporting
Multi-factor security: 2FA/MFA, device fingerprinting, behavioral biometrics
Investigation tools: internal tools for fraud team

Payment processing and operations

Reliable payment systems and operations

Payment gateway integration: Stripe, Adyen, Plaid, Dwolla, etc.
Transaction reconciliation systems: automated matching, discrepancy resolution
Failed payment handling: retry logic, dunning management
Multi-currency: currency conversion, international payments
Settlement: bank reconciliation, ledger systems
Payment methods: cards, ACH, wire transfers, digital wallets

Financial calculations and ledgers

Accurate financial systems and accounting

Double-entry bookkeeping: proper ledger design, transaction integrity
Interest calculations: compound interest, APR, payment schedules
Credit scoring: ML models for creditworthiness assessment
Portfolio management: asset allocation, rebalancing, performance tracking
Tax calculations: tax withholding, tax reporting generation, international taxation
Reporting: financial statements, regulatory reports, customer statements

Scale and performance

Handling high loads with reliability

High transaction volume: processing millions of transactions per day
Real-time processing: transaction confirmation in milliseconds
Database optimization: sharding, read replicas, caching strategies
Queue management: asynchronous processing of non-critical operations
Load testing: ensuring the system handles peak loads
Monitoring and alerts: real-time system health, transaction monitoring

Common use cases

Specialized solutions for different FinTech sectors

Digital banking and neobanks

Banking system architecture
Account management and KYC
Card issuance and management
Real-time transaction processing
Mobile banking applications

Lending

Loan origination systems (LOS)
Credit decision algorithms
Payment processing and collections
Risk assessment
Loan servicing platforms

Payment processing

Payment gateway integration
Merchant onboarding and KYC
Transaction routing and optimization
Transaction reconciliation
Fraud detection and prevention

Wealth management and investments

Portfolio management systems
Trading platform architecture
Market data integration
Risk analytics and reporting
Robo-advisory algorithms

Personal finance management

Account aggregation (Plaid, Yodlee)
Budgeting and expense analysis
Bill payment automation
Financial insights and recommendations
Credit score monitoring

Technology stack and architecture

Proven technologies for financial systems

Backend

Node.js, Python, Java
.NET/C# for complex calculations
PostgreSQL (ACID-compliant)
MongoDB, Redis

Databases and queues

PostgreSQL for transactions
Redis for caching
RabbitMQ, Kafka, SQS
Asynchronous processing

Payment APIs

Stripe, Plaid, Dwolla
Marqeta, Unit, Synapse
Banking API partners
Cryptocurrency gateways

Infrastructure

AWS, GCP, Azure
Hybrid solutions for compliance
Vault for secrets
AWS KMS, HSM

Monitoring and security

DataDog, New Relic
PagerDuty, Splunk
Intrusion detection systems
SIEM solutions

How it works

Month 1: Security and compliance audit

4 weeks

Security assessment and penetration testing, compliance gap analysis, architecture review for financial integrity, critical risk identification, quick security fixes.

Month 2-3: Infrastructure and core systems

8 weeks

Security control implementation, payment processing optimization, fraud detection systems, audit logging and monitoring, disaster recovery process setup.

Month 4-6: Compliance and optimization

12 weeks

SOC2/PCI-DSS certification process, performance optimization, automated compliance reporting, team training on security practices, documentation and guides.

Results you can expect

Security and compliance

SOC2 Type II or PCI-DSS certification
Zero security incidents
Comprehensive audit trails
Automated compliance reporting
Secure development practices

Reliability and performance

99.99%+ uptime
Transaction processing in milliseconds
Zero financial discrepancies
Automated transaction reconciliation
Disaster recovery algorithm tested and ready

Business impact

Passing banking partner due diligence
60-80% reduction in fraud losses
Faster payment processing
Reduced compliance costs (automation)
Customer trust and confidence

Who this is for

Pre-Seed/Seed stage

Building first version of FinTech product. Security and compliance from day one. Integration with banks/payment partners.

Series A

Scaling transaction volume. SOC2/PCI-DSS certification. Fraud prevention at scale.

Series A+ and scaling

Expanding multi-product line. International expansion (new regulations). Building compliance team.

Enterprise and established companies

Complex security and compliance requirements. Multi-regional operations. Integration with legacy systems.

Pricing

Suitable packages for FinTech companies

Currency:

Growth CTO

Scale CTO

$11,000per month

~20 hours per week of dedicated time

For Series A+ startups with 15-20+ engineers preparing for the next funding round.

How we work:

Everything from Growth CTO package
Daily involvement in engineering operations - standups, planning, escalations
Executive team participation - board prep, investor meetings, due diligence support
Engineering management development - coaching team leads into engineering managers
Organizational design - team topology, processes, rituals, communication structures
Vendor strategy - cloud cost optimization, service negotiations, contractor management
Technical debt strategy - refactoring roadmap balanced against product delivery

What you walk away with:

Engineering handbook - culture, standards, processes, expectations
Leveling and compensation framework - career ladders and salary bands
Engineering metrics dashboard - DORA metrics, velocity trends, code quality
Incident management playbook - on-call rotation, severity definitions, postmortem process
Technical due diligence package - investor-ready architecture and security documentation
Security and compliance assessment - SOC2, GDPR, HIPAA readiness evaluation
Engineering headcount plan and infrastructure budget forecast

Outcome

A mature engineering organization ready for due diligence and the next funding round.

3-month minimum commitment