by Pablo Gerboles Parrilla, Founder & CEO — AliveDevOps
The fintech sector offers some of the highest stakes of any industry, with leaders facing enormous pressure to innovate quickly while navigating intense regulatory scrutiny. That’s not to mention the plethora of security issues that businesses in the fintech sector face due to the high value of their customers’ data. As a result, fintech organizations must learn how to navigate the tension between speed and control.
By applying several of the core principles of DevOps, fintech leaders can deploy technology faster without sacrificing security. Doing so allows fintech businesses to continue innovating while staying secure and maintaining compliance with relevant laws and regulations.
DevOps strategies for fintech businesses
Some strategies that are common in the DevOps industry that fintech businesses could apply to their own systems include:
- Shift-left security: Because fintech companies handle sensitive financial and personal data, security must start at the earliest stages of development. As a result, many fintech companies pursue “shift-left security” — integrating security checks directly into CI/CD pipelines, allowing developers to catch vulnerabilities early before code enters production.
- Zero-trust architecture: Zero-trust architecture is one of the most rigid security protocols a fintech business can use, as it assumes that no system or user is inherently trustworthy. Deploying a zero-trust architecture in fintech involves taking steps like strict identity and access management (IAM), microsegmentation, and constant authentication checks across all stages of development, testing, and deployment. By limiting access to a need-to-know basis, businesses can prevent insider threats and lateral movement in the case of a breach.
- Infrastructure as Code (IaC) with Automated Security Validation: Utilizing IaC tools, such as Terraform or AWS, enables fintech teams to manage infrastructure in a consistent and auditable manner. These tools also allow them to enforce any security and compliance rules before infrastructure changes go live.
- Continuous compliance monitoring: With the wide range of laws and regulations that apply to the fintech industry, businesses must be careful of compliance. Businesses would be wise to use automated compliance scanning tools that continuously monitor configurations, data handling, and access controls against regulatory frameworks.
- Immutable deployment and automated rollbacks: Fintech businesses may also choose to employ immutable deployment — a strategy in which once a new environment is deployed, it cannot be altered. Instead, it requires a new version to be deployed for any changes to occur, which minimizes configuration drift and reduces the attack surface. When paired with automated rollbacks, immutable deployment can allow businesses to revert to a previous state if security issues manifest.
How a DevOps approach benefits the fintech industry
In an industry where data is such a high-value target as in the fintech sector, continuous deployment is not a luxury, but a necessity. Continuous deployment enables businesses to release smaller patches to address individual vulnerabilities as they emerge, rather than waiting for a larger update. Additionally, continuous deployment enables businesses to minimize service disruptions since it allows code to deploy seamlessly, which reduces downtime.
Real-time observability is another aspect of a DevOps approach that is particularly useful in the fintech sector. DevOps focuses on fast issue detection and improved diagnostics, which allows businesses to proactively identify and address problems before they cause an impact. When it comes to security, this is integral in preventing user data from being left vulnerable, while real-time observability is crucial for compliance to avoid potential fines.
Indeed, DevOps strategies are key for fintech organizations seeking to strike the right balance between speed and control. By implementing DevOps strategies like shift-left security, zero-trust architecture, infrastructure as code, continuous compliance monitoring, and immutable deployment, fintech organizations can better secure their systems and ensure compliance, helping them avoid issues before they ever arise.
Pablo Gerboles Parrilla is an entrepreneur, CEO, and professional golfer with a unique blend of discipline, strategic thinking, and creativity. With a background in technology and marketing, Pablo has been building and scaling businesses across various niches since 2017. He is known for turning complex ideas into real-world solutions and taking concepts from vision to execution with precision and speed.