A Practical Fintech Compliance Playbook

Fintechs often treat compliance as a bottleneck. Done right, it becomes a competitive advantage: faster go-to-market, fewer surprises, and stronger trust with partners and regulators.

Start with licensing and scope

Know exactly what you're doing and where. Payment services, lending, e-money, and investment advice each have different rules. Map your activities to licenses and regulatory requirements before you scale into new products or geographies.

AML and KYC

Design controls that scale. Automate where possible (screening, transaction monitoring) but keep clear ownership and review. Document your risk assessment, policies, and procedures. Regulators expect evidence of a risk-based approach, not a tick-the-box checklist.

Operational resilience

Outages and cyber incidents are under the spotlight. Plan for failures: backup systems, incident response, and communication. Test regularly. Many jurisdictions now have explicit resilience and DORA-style requirements.

Build a culture of compliance

Compliance is not just a team—it's everyone. Train product, engineering, and ops. Embed compliance in design and launch processes. Escalate early; fix issues before they become findings.

When to bring in help

• You're entering a new jurisdiction or product set.
• You're preparing for a license application or audit.
• You've had findings and need to remediate and harden.

We help fintechs design and implement compliance programmes that scale. Contact us to discuss your situation.