The Green Sheet Online Edition
November 10, 2025 • 25:11:01
Save fintech from freefall - double down on infrastructure
As someone who's spent years building scalable tech in the financial services space, I've witnessed seismic shifts in the fintech landscape. We're now at a turning point where investor attention is shifting from the flash of consumer-facing platforms to the deep foundations of infrastructure fintechs.
This isn't part of a cyclical trend, but a structural rebalancing rooted in the growing demand for scalable, secure and interoperable platforms that support financial systems at a global scale.
The fade of consumer hype
Traditionally, the fintech spotlight has been squarely on consumer-facing platforms: neobanks, personal finance apps, robo-advisers. Their promise to revolutionize the user experience, democratize access to finance, and bypass traditional institutions with sleek design and seamless onboarding was clear, exciting and attractive.
But beneath the surface, cracks have formed. Growth was fueled more by aggressive marketing and subsidized fees than by innovation. As capital became more discerning, the economics of these models came under pressure. Metrics that once dazzled were suddenly insufficient in the face of weak unit economics and low switching costs.
In reality, many consumer fintechs became commoditized in a crowded marketplace. The differentiation was often aesthetic rather than architectural. And as user acquisition costs surged, retention plateaued, and regulatory scrutiny intensified. It's become clear that brand polish alone can't sustain a business built on shaky infrastructure.
For CTOs and builders, this shift is instructive: no matter how engaging the interface, the product is only as strong as the systems behind it.
Infrastructure fintechs: The quiet engines of progress
While consumer fintechs stole the limelight, infrastructure fintechs quietly laid the groundwork for a more resilient, scalable financial system. These are the enablers, the companies creating the pipes and plumbing that institutions depend on to function effectively in a digital-first world.
These firms aren't adding another interface layer; they're reimagining the core. From modern payment networks and core banking as a service to automated KYC/AML and real-time fraud detection, they're tackling complexity where it matters most.
It means their role has evolved from background utility to strategic partner. The best infrastructure fintechs are embedded so deeply in clients' workflows that they become invisible but indispensable. That's the hallmark of true infrastructure: it works quietly in the background, ensuring everything else works as it should.
And while they may lack the sleek UX of B2C peers, they command something far more valuable: the trust of institutions, the confidence of regulators and the conviction of long-horizon investors.
What technological distinctiveness looks like
The most successful infrastructure fintechs aren't just shipping code; they're building elegant, deeply integrated platforms that address fundamental industry constraints.
What gives these firms their edge is not surface-level innovation, but systems thinking.
Their platforms are engineered with a long-term architectural vision, often exhibiting three defining traits:
- API-first modularity: These fintechs build as if every component might one day plug into another ecosystem. This design philosophy enables flexibility for clients to integrate quickly, extend capabilities, and stay future-proof in an evolving regulatory and technological environment.
- Interoperability by design: Legacy systems don't vanish overnight. That's why infrastructure fintechs focus on easy integration.
- Built for scale and specialization: These platforms are built to serve institutions with millions of customers and complex compliance regimes. The architecture anticipates scale from day one, with microservices, cloud-native infrastructure and real-time data processing built into the DNA.
What's striking is that fintech infrastructure firms aren't trying to be everything to everyone. Their differentiation comes from doing one complex thing extremely well—be it cross-border payments, KYC automation or fraud analytics—and building deep, defensible technology around it.
Strategic capital and expansion
While overall fintech investment has cooled, infrastructure players are defying the trend. Global investment in digital infrastructure is projected to exceed $160 billion in 2025, reflecting a growing appetite for scalable, secure and interoperable platforms.
This shift marks a broader investor recalibration, from chasing user growth to backing companies that solve systemic, high-friction problems. Infrastructure fintechs are attracting capital not just for what they build, but for how deeply they embed into the financial fabric.
They are deploying that capital with precision by:
- Deepening technical capabilities: Investing in R&D to enhance platform performance, resilience, and compliance automation.
- Expanding globally through partnerships: Integrating with regional banks, regulators, and payment networks to unlock new markets.
- Scaling responsibly: Prioritizing uptime, reliability, and trust over blitz-scaling.
This shift highlights the importance of building with the foresight to scale across borders, regulatory regimes and market cycles, rather than just building fast.
Building the future from the ground up
As the fintech sector matures, the spotlight is shifting away from surface-level innovation to structural transformation. Infrastructure fintechs aren't just part of that story, they are the story, designing the digital bedrock on which tomorrow's financial services will be built.
This moment demands more than incremental product thinking. It calls for deep engineering rigor, scalable architecture and long-term strategic vision. As CTOs, we have a unique vantage point (and a responsibility) to shape financial systems that are not only powerful and performant, but also resilient, ethical and future-ready.
Because when the infrastructure is strong, everything else can thrive.
Andrii Shevchuk is CRO and partner at CONCRYT. You can reach him via LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/andrii-shevchuk-53224645.
Notice to readers: These are archived articles. Contact information, links and other details may be out of date. We regret any inconvenience.
