Fintech companies talk a lot about growth, AI features, and better user experiences. Boards review market opportunities and customer numbers. Infrastructure often gets only a brief mention in tech roadmaps, with the implicit assumption that it will just work.
This creates problems. In Central Asia, I’ve watched fintech companies grow faster than their systems can handle. A mobile wallet suddenly has ten times as many users as expected, or a lending platform processes triple the loan applications it was built to handle. The systems start breaking down because business growth and technical readiness move on different timelines – until something fails.
When the gap becomes visible
The mismatch between business goals and technical capacity doesn’t show up right away. It becomes visible when circumstances change – user numbers jump, services need to run 24/7, regulators add new requirements, and customers expect zero downtime.
A 2026 report found that critical infrastructure downtime runs about USD 1.8 million per hour, and 29% of companies face major outages every week.[1] Trading platforms saw API downtime hit 55 minutes per week in Q1 2025, up 60% from the year before.[2] Uptime dropped to 99.46%, adding about 90 extra minutes of downtime each month.[2]
Fintech is more than a mobile app, and when demand grows, infrastructure becomes the bottleneck. Legacy brokerages had 3.5 times as many outages as those running modern systems.[2] These problems stem not from poor features or design but from infrastructure decisions made months or years earlier.
Why infrastructure remains a downstream concern
Infrastructure decisions are usually made far from the executive team, where someone addresses immediate problems without considering the long term. Projects launch under deadline pressure with temporary fixes that never get replaced – a pattern familiar across companies.
Teams rush to market and skip durability. A proof-of-concept becomes the production system without redesign, while technical debt accumulates and everyone moves on to the next feature.
Most infrastructure is built for now, but without a clear definition of what now means – whether one year or five. Engineers prioritize fast delivery, while leadership expects long-term stability, and the gap becomes obvious only when the system fails.
CAPEX versus OPEX decisions matter here. Upfront investment provides control and efficiency over time, while operational spending delivers speed and flexibility but grows expensive at scale. Neither is wrong – it depends on your timeline, risk tolerance, and business strategy. Yet most companies make these choices without fully considering their long-term needs.
Infrastructure as executive responsibility
When infrastructure becomes a business strategy rather than just a technical problem, things shift:
- Decisions happen at the leadership level, allowing real trade-offs
- Growth plans align with technical capacity
- Infrastructure is treated as an investment, not just a cost
Companies that rely entirely on one cloud provider had 35% more infrastructure problems than those using hybrid setups, and hybrid models cut outage risk by about 25%.[2] These differences result from architectural choices with business impact, not from engineering talent alone.
Vendor lock-in, backup costs, and migration complexity belong in the same conversations as market strategy and capital planning.
Planning across one-year, three-year, and five-year horizons ensures that systems evolve in line with business growth. Choices that work today may constrain future launches, while long-term investments may initially slow growth. Making these trade-offs explicit allows companies to act deliberately rather than by accident.
Infrastructure stops causing constant fires when leadership actively manages it. Problems still occur, but risks are chosen rather than stumbled into.
Infrastructure as continuous evolution
Infrastructure is not built once and left alone. It evolves as companies grow, markets shift, and regulations tighten.
A system built for 10,000 users needs to be rethought for a million. Compliance that worked before may fail, and third-party tools that were adequate at first may start causing problems. Forrester predicts at least two major cloud outages lasting multiple days in 2026, driven by AI infrastructure upgrades and concentrated workloads.[3] Cloud infrastructure has become a systemic risk, and treating it as fixed is a mistake.
A good infrastructure strategy accepts change. What fits today may not fit tomorrow, so regular reviews catch issues before they become emergencies. Adaptability usually outweighs attempting to perfect everything up front.
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution because financial companies operate in different markets, face different regulations, serve diverse customers, and handle unique risks. The skill lies in matching infrastructure to your situation and updating those choices as circumstances evolve.
The management question
Fintech failures rarely start with bad code. They usually stem from mismatches between expectations about what systems can handle and what they were designed to do.
A platform designed for moderate-volume hits peaks during demand. A service built for one region’s rules faces international compliance, or a system made for business hours must run around the clock. Infrastructure reflects the quality of management decisions: when executives delegate responsibility entirely, problems escalate; when leadership treats infrastructure strategically, it becomes a competitive advantage.
You need to think clearly about what technology needs to accomplish – not just which technology to use.
Companies that handle growth effectively do not necessarily have better engineers or bigger budgets. They have more explicit conversations about timelines, trade-offs, and the alignment between business goals and technical foundations. They treat infrastructure decisions as business decisions because that is precisely what they are.
In 2026, fintech companies face tighter margins, stiffer competition, and higher customer expectations. Infrastructure will distinguish the survivors from the rest. Your systems must support where you’re going, not just where you are today.
References
[1] New Relic, 2026 Observability Report
[2] Coin Law, Q1 2025 Trading Platform Infrastructure Analysis
[3] Forrester, 2026 Cloud Infrastructure Risk Forecast
