Analysis, commentary, and playbooks on fintech regulation, infrastructure, and financial operations.
One of the most common mistakes we see in early-stage payment institutions is treating safeguarding and settlement as the same thing. They are not. Mixing them up creates compliance risk and operational chaos, and are a particular focus area of the regulators – rightfully so, given that it's the customers' funds that are the subject matter.
Every payment institution starts with a gateway. It processes transactions. It shows volumes, approval rates, chargebacks. Normally it would also have a client-facing front, showing the information that is relevant to a merchant. But does it really show what is due to be paid to the merchant, or what has been earned last month?
The checklist is public. The bar for passing isn't. Having led license applications in Luxembourg, Brazil, Cyprus, and the Netherlands, the difference between applications that get approved and applications that stall is rarely about what's included.
I've sat in board meetings at payment companies where the entire financial presentation was a single spreadsheet, emailed the night before, with no cost centers, no product breakdown, no client-level profitability, and no comparison to budget.
