Onicore has unveiled its initiative to support fintech companies in building more resilient and scalable systems.
Fintech strategist Andrii Bruiaka introduced it as the Infrastructure Transparency Framework, a new approach designed to help fintech companies better understand and manage their reliance on third-party infrastructure, as systemic risks across the sector continue to grow.
With more than 15 years of experience across payments, neobanks, and cross-border infrastructure, Bruiaka highlights a widening gap between what fintech companies believe they control and what they actually own. According to him, this disconnect is becoming one of the primary sources of operational and financial risk in the industry.
“Most fintech products today are built on layers of external infrastructure. The challenge isn’t using these systems it’s not fully understanding the dependencies they create,” said Bruiaka.
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Modern fintech platforms typically rely on multiple third-party providers, including sponsor banks, card issuers, payment processors, KYC and AML vendors, and middleware layers. While this modular approach has accelerated innovation and reduced time-to-market, it has also introduced hidden dependencies that can expose companies to disruptions beyond their control.
Recent industry events have highlighted these risks. The collapse of a U.S.-based Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) middleware provider in 2024 led to over $265 million in frozen customer funds, impacting approximately 100,000 end users. In another case, a global outage caused by a cybersecurity vendor disrupted operations across airlines, healthcare systems, and financial institutions worldwide.
“These incidents demonstrate a consistent pattern companies often underestimate how critical their infrastructure dependencies are until failures occur,” Bruiaka added.
OniCore’s Key Principles
The Infrastructure Transparency Framework, developed through OniCore, focuses on three key principles:
Operational visibility: understanding how products behave if critical vendors fail
Financial ownership clarity: identifying where customer funds and core ledgers are actually managed
Switching readiness: assessing the real cost and feasibility of replacing infrastructure providers
Rather than advocating for fully in-house systems, the framework encourages fintech companies to adopt a more transparent and structured approach to infrastructure partnerships. Industry trends such as vendor consolidation, increasing regulatory pressure, and the rise of API-driven services have further deepened infrastructure complexity. As a result, multiple fintech companies may be exposed to the same underlying risks, even when using different providers.
“The future of fintech is not about eliminating external infrastructure, but about building transparency around it,” said Bruiaka. “Companies that succeed will be those that clearly understand where their product ends and where dependencies begin.”
The Infrastructure Transparency Framework is now being introduced as part of OniCore’s broader initiative to support fintech companies in building more resilient and scalable systems.
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