Last reviewed August 19, 2026

Banking Software Development

Digital banking platforms, core banking modernization, open banking API integration and neobank solutions.

PCI DSS SOC 2 GDPR Compliant ISO 27001
  • 15+ FinTech projects
  • 13+ years in business
  • 106 Clutch reviews
106 reviews 139 reviews 13 reviews 54 reviews 27 reviews 5.0 339+ verified reviews across five platforms

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SOC 2 Type II GDPR ISO 27001 NDA Protected

Aligned with these frameworks. Audit reports available on request.

Last updated
by Dmytro Nasyrov, Founder and CTO. Content reflects Pharos Production delivery data as of that date. Editorial policy.
Dmytro Nasyrov - Founder and CTO of Pharos Production

Practice led by Dmytro Nasyrov

Founder and CTO

23+ years in custom software development. Led 110+ projects across FinTech, healthcare, Web3 and enterprise, ISO 27001-aligned team.

Olena Zaichenko - FinTech and AI scientist and advisor to Pharos Production

Technically reviewed by Olena Zaichenko, D.Sc.

FinTech and AI Scientist and Advisor

Professor, Department of Mathematical Methods of System Analysis, Institute for Applied System Analysis, Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. Financial analyst at EPAM Systems from 2005 to 2019.

Reviewed for technical accuracy on August 19, 2026. Not an endorsement of any commercial claim on this page.

What is banking software development?

Banking software development is the engineering of systems that deliver retail, commercial or neobank services: account management, ledger and double-entry bookkeeping, card issuance and processing, ACH/SEPA/wire transfers, loan origination and servicing, deposit products, open banking APIs, compliance reporting and core banking integrations. Production banking systems require PCI DSS architecture, sponsor-bank or chartered-bank relationships, KYC/AML integration, regulator-ready audit logs, real-time reporting and disaster recovery with RTO targets measured in minutes. Pharos has shipped core-adjacent banking systems for neobanks, BaaS platforms and payment processors since 2018.
Authoritative citations 12 sources
  1. PCI DSS v4.0 Standard The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard v4.0 is the binding specification for any system that stores, processes or transmits cardholder data, and we design every payments build against its 12 requirement families from day one of discovery. pcisecuritystandards.org
  2. European Banking Authority PSD2 RTS The PSD2 Regulatory Technical Standards on strong customer authentication and secure communication define the EU rules for payments, account information and dedicated interfaces, which govern every open banking integration we ship in the EEA. eba.europa.eu
  3. FATF Recommendations on AML/CFT The Financial Action Task Force 40 Recommendations are the global AML and counter-terrorism financing baseline that our screening, customer due diligence and transaction monitoring designs implement in every regulated FinTech engagement. fatf-gafi.org
  4. Stripe Engineering Blog The Stripe engineering blog publishes deep-dive posts on idempotency, ledger design, distributed counters and payment lifecycle that inform how we architect money movement systems and idempotency keys across our custom FinTech builds. stripe.com
  5. Plaid Reliability Post-mortems Plaid engineering publishes detailed post-mortems and reliability reports on the infrastructure behind bank connections, which we read closely because our payment and account aggregation flows depend on similar third-party reliability envelopes. plaid.com
  6. Bank for International Settlements CPMI Reports The BIS Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures publishes authoritative reports on cross-border payments, CBDC and fast payment systems, which inform every FinTech engagement touching international money movement or central bank rails. bis.org
  7. NIST Digital Identity Guidelines SP 800-63 NIST SP 800-63 defines authenticator assurance levels and identity proofing that we map to KYC flows, step-up authentication and regulated account opening journeys in FinTech platforms subject to US regulators. pages.nist.gov
  8. ISO 20022 Payments Messages ISO 20022 is the global messaging standard replacing legacy MT and ACH formats across Fedwire, SWIFT, SEPA and instant payment rails, and we design ledger and integration layers for ISO 20022 first with legacy adapters rather than the reverse. iso20022.org
  9. Basel III Framework The Basel III regulatory framework governs capital, leverage and liquidity requirements for banks, which cascades into our build decisions when platforms integrate with regulated institutions needing reporting, stress testing and risk data pipelines. bis.org
  10. SWIFT Customer Security Programme The SWIFT Customer Security Programme mandates security controls for institutions connecting to the SWIFT network, which shape our reference architecture whenever a client integrates FIN, gpi or the ISO 20022 SWIFT rails. swift.com
  11. OWASP Application Security Verification Standard OWASP ASVS provides a ranked control set for application security verification that we map against PCI DSS, SOC 2 and ISO 27001 requirements when building the control baseline for new FinTech platforms. owasp.org
  12. FSB Financial Stability Reports The Financial Stability Board publishes reports on FinTech, crypto-asset regulation and cross-border payments that shape our regulatory risk posture for client platforms operating across multiple jurisdictions. fsb.org
What we do not do
  • Full core banking replacement without a sponsor bank or charter partner
  • Crypto-adjacent banking without jurisdiction analysis from qualified legal counsel
  • Projects where the client wants us to hold the regulatory license
  • Lending products without regulatory review of usury and disclosure rules

Banking software at Pharos Production at a glance

  • Banking systems: 10+ production banking systems since 2018 (neobanks, BaaS platforms, core-adjacent middleware, loan origination)
  • Compliance: PCI DSS, aligned with SOC 2 and ISO 27001, GDPR, PSD2-compliant, FCA/CFPB-aware architecture
  • Stack: Elixir/Phoenix, Java/Spring, Node.js, PostgreSQL with double-entry ledger, Kafka event bus, AWS VPC with CloudHSM
  • Integrations: FIS, Fiserv, Jack Henry, Thought Machine, 10x Banking, Marqeta, Galileo, Sumsub, Onfido, Plaid, TrueLayer, Mastercard, Visa DPS
  • Pricing: Banking MVP from $80,000-$200,000; full platform $200,000-$800,000+; retainers from $12,000/month
  • Timeline: Discovery + compliance review 4-6 weeks; MVP 4-7 months; full platform 9-18 months with sponsor-bank integration
  • Disaster recovery: RTO < 1 hour for transactional systems, RPO < 5 minutes, quarterly DR drills
  • Honest scope: We recommend Unit/Treasury Prime/Column for early-stage and decline full core replacements without charter partners

Delivering bank-grade software

Banking software projects follow Pharos Verified Delivery with bank-grade gates: discovery includes regulator-ready compliance modeling and sponsor-bank integration planning; build includes double-entry ledger + idempotent transaction handling + audit log on every state change; production readiness covers disaster recovery drill, regulator audit readiness and 4-hour SLA on P1 incidents; support includes monthly reconciliation reviews and quarterly regulator-readiness walkthroughs.

Pharos Verified Delivery 4-phase methodology with typical durations and deliverables
  1. Phase 01 / 04

    Paid Discovery

    2-4 weeks
    • Technical validation
    • Architecture proposal
    • Scope refined estimate
    82% on-schedule with discovery
  2. Phase 02 / 04

    Iterative Build

    2-week sprints
    • Working demos every sprint
    • CTO review at milestones
    • ADRs documented
    Transparent progress tracking
  3. Phase 03 / 04

    Production Readiness

    • Monitoring and alerting
    • Security audit Pen test
    • Runbooks and rollback
    ISO 27001 aligned
  4. Phase 04 / 04

    Support

    Ongoing
    • Security patches
    • Performance tuning
    • 4h SLA response
    Continuous improvement

Pharos Verified Delivery applied to 110+ production applications since 2013

Banking engagements we shipped

Three recent banking engagements with the regulatory and integration calls that made them pass their first audit.

Neobank launch

Q3 2024 · Neobank, UK
Before

Pre-launch neobank with a sponsor bank relationship but no core-adjacent platform. Needed ledger, card issuance, KYC, mobile app and customer support tooling within 6 months.

After

Full neobank platform delivered in 5 months and 2 weeks with card issuance via Marqeta, KYC via Sumsub, ledger on PostgreSQL and mobile app in Flutter. FCA go-live on schedule. 40,000 accounts opened in the first 90 days.

We ran the build in parallel tracks: ledger + regulatory + mobile app + KYC each had a dedicated squad coordinating through a shared API contract defined in week one. The sponsor bank integration was the critical path and got the most senior engineer.

Core integration modernization

Q1 2025 · Regional bank, US
Before

Regional bank with a 25-year-old FIS core. New digital features took 9-14 months to ship because every change required coordinating with the core vendor.

After

Integration abstraction layer (middleware + event bus) that isolates the core from the product layer. New feature cycle down to 6-10 weeks. Core upgrade cycle decoupled from product release cycle. Zero downtime during the 4-month rollout.

We did not replace the core - we abstracted it. The middleware translates between the core's batch-oriented interfaces and the product layer's real-time needs. The core still runs nightly batches; the product layer sees real-time via event sourcing over a Kafka bus.

BaaS platform

Q4 2024 · Banking-as-a-Service provider, EU
Before

Manual partner onboarding taking 6-8 weeks per integration. Each partner required custom compliance review. Scaling blocked on human-in-the-loop approvals.

After

Self-service partner portal with automated KYB, risk scoring and compliance controls. Onboarding time down to 4-6 days. Partners scaled from 12 to 47 in 8 months without headcount increase in compliance.

The automation does not replace compliance - it front-loads the information gathering and flags high-risk cases for human review. 62% of partners clear automated checks and go live in 4-6 days; the remaining 38% enter a review queue with pre-filled risk assessments.

Client names anonymized under NDA. Full case studies at /cases/.

When custom banking software is not the answer

We decline roughly 30% of RFPs we receive. Forcing a bad fit costs both sides 3-6 months and damages outcomes. Here is how we think about scope:

Projects we decline
  • Full core banking replacement without a sponsor bank or charter partner
  • Basic deposit products where existing neobank infrastructure (Unit, Treasury Prime, Column) would ship in weeks
  • Lending products without regulatory review of usury and disclosure rules
  • Crypto-adjacent banking without jurisdiction analysis from qualified counsel
  • Projects where the client has no compliance program to operate the software
We recommend BaaS providers when they fit

For early-stage neobanks and BaaS-powered products, providers like Unit, Treasury Prime, Column, Synapse and Increase ship in weeks with inherited compliance. Custom banking software makes sense when you need direct sponsor-bank pricing at scale, proprietary risk models, non-standard products or regulatory ownership that BaaS cannot deliver. We have recommended BaaS over custom on many engagements.

Pharos original research

Read before you commit

FinTech Development at Pharos Parent hub covering FinTech services including banking, payments, KYC and crypto rails with engagement models and case studies. Continue reading

Pharos banking portfolio

Pharos banking software delivery portfolio observations, 2019-2026

Ranges we consistently see across 25+ banking engagements.

  • 99.99%+ achieved on mid-market deploys with automated reconciliation; residual exceptions flagged within 6 hours on end-of-day batch.

  • 16-28 weeks from discovery to production-ready multi-entity ledger with reconciliation, reporting and audit pipeline[7].

  • 8-14 weeks with Temenos, Mambu, Thought Machine or custom core banking platforms via ISO 20022 message adapters[8].

  • 40-60% reduction in annual PCI audit preparation via automated evidence generation versus manual control binders[1].

  • Approximately 35% of engagements involve migrating from legacy batch rails to real-time or ISO 20022 equivalents, typically as multi-phase strangler patterns.

Observations reflect the Pharos Production banking delivery portfolio 2019-2026. Full case studies in our case studies library.

Banking software development outlook 2026-2027

Three shifts are reshaping banking platform engineering.

  • Real-time payment rails become table stakes

    FedNow, SEPA Instant and UPI-style real-time rails move from emerging option to baseline expectation. Batch-first banking platforms face integration pressure from customer-facing apps expecting sub-second settlement[8].

  • Open banking APIs shift from compliance to revenue

    PSD2, FDX, Australia CDR and similar regimes no longer serve only compliance reporting. Banks monetise structured API access and partnership rails, and platforms without API-first architecture lose B2B distribution[2].

  • ML-assisted fraud scoring replaces rules-only models

    Mid-market banks join the shift from pure rules engines to hybrid rules plus gradient-boosting fraud models. Banks without ML tier fraud detection report higher false-positive rates and measurable customer churn[3].

Our four-dimension banking software evaluation template

Every banking software engagement we ship runs against the same four-dimension readiness evaluation before handover.

  1. 30%

    Regulatory compliance

    PCI DSS, PSD2, GDPR, jurisdiction rules mapped to code

    PCI DSS v4.0 twelve requirement families, PSD2 RTS and GDPR obligations mapped to code paths, with audit-ready evidence generation[1].

  2. 25%

    Transaction integrity

    Idempotency, reconciliation, audit trail, replay safety

    Idempotency keys enforced end-to-end, daily reconciliation jobs, immutable audit log with tamper detection[4].

  3. 25%

    Fraud and AML controls

    Screening, scoring, SAR automation, sanctions lists

    KYC at onboarding, transaction monitoring with documented thresholds, SAR workflow with 30-day filing SLA, hourly sanctions-list sync[3].

  4. 20%

    Operational resilience

    RTO, RPO, DR tested quarterly, incident runbooks

    RTO under 2 hours, RPO under 15 minutes, DR drill every quarter, incident runbooks for top-20 failure modes[10].

Eval template refreshes quarterly against latest PCI DSS, EBA RTS and ISO 20022 publications.

Production post-mortem

When a ledger idempotency gap caused a settlement discrepancy

A mid-market neobank ledger we shipped in Q3 2024 had two write paths: a primary path protected by idempotency keys, and a rarely-used manual reconciliation path that did not enforce idempotency. During a batch operator action, a duplicate manual write created a measurable but bounded settlement discrepancy across 47 accounts. End-of-day reconciliation caught it within 6 hours; no customer-facing impact.

All ledger write paths now share a single idempotency middleware regardless of operator or automation source. Two-phase commit wrapper introduced for manual corrections. Post-mortem runbook documented and added to the production readiness checklist for subsequent bank engagements.

How banking metrics are counted
Banking metrics counted: production systems handling real deposit or payment volume with regulator-approved sponsor-bank or charter relationships. Onboarding improvements measured against pre-engagement baselines. Compliance certifications reflect Pharos infrastructure attestations - client products require their own compliance program operated by the licensed entity. Last reviewed: . Editorial policy.
Licensing and regulatory boundaries
Pharos Production builds banking software. We do not hold banking, money transmitter or broker-dealer licenses. Regulatory licensing, charter operation, compliance program operation and customer-facing financial responsibility belong to the client or their sponsor bank partner. Software is operated within applicable banking regulations by the licensed entity.

Published record

Published Pharos research

Technical articles, comparison guides and methodology deep-dives we write from our own delivery experience.

Platforms we work with

Trusted by Coinbase, Consensys, Core Scientific, MicroStrategy, Gate.io and 10+ more Web3 and enterprise platforms

16+ partners

Our 16 technology partners include:

  • Consensys
  • Gate Io
  • Coinbase
  • Ludo
  • Core Scientific
  • Debut Infotech
  • Axoni
  • Alchemy
  • Starkware
  • Mara Holdings
  • MicroStrategy
  • Nubank
  • Okx
  • Uniswap
  • Riot
  • Leeway Hertz
  • Consensys
  • Gate Io
  • Coinbase
  • Core Scientific
  • Debut Infotech
  • Axoni
  • Alchemy
  • Starkware
  • Mara Holdings
  • MicroStrategy
  • Nubank
  • Okx
  • Uniswap
  • Riot
  • Leeway Hertz

Banking software we develop

  • Digital banking platforms
    Full-cycle neobank and digital banking solutions with account management, KYC/AML integration, lending modules and open banking APIs.
  • Core banking modernization
    Legacy system migration to modern architectures. Microservices-based core banking with real-time processing and API-first design.
  • Open banking integrations
    PSD2-compliant API layers connecting banks with third-party providers. Account aggregation, payment initiation and consent management.

About the founder and CTO

Dmytro Nasyrov

Dmytro Nasyrov

Founder and CTO Pharos Production

Ask the founder a question

I design and build reliable software solutions - from lightweight apps to high-load distributed systems and blockchain platforms.

PhD in Artificial Intelligence, MSc in Computer Science (with honors), MSc in Electronics & Precision Mechanics.

  • 13 years in architecture of great software solutions tailored to customer needs for startups and enterprises

  • 23 years of practical enterprise customized software production experience

  • Lecturer at the National Kyiv Polytechnic University

  • Doctor of Philosophy in Artificial Intelligence

  • Master's degree in Computer Science, completed with excellence

  • Master's degree in Electronics and precision mechanics engineering

Choose your cooperation model

Pharos Production works in three engagement models, from a focused PoC to a production MVP to a full enterprise platform, with typical budgets from $10,000 to $500,000+ depending on scope and complexity.

PoC
Proof of concept

Focused validation of your riskiest technical assumption with a working spike and a clear build-or-pivot recommendation.

$10,000 - $30,000
Popular choice
MVP
MVP build

Production-ready first version with core flows, real backend and the integrations to onboard first paying users.

$50,000 - $150,000
Enterprise
Enterprise platform

Full-scale build with architecture, DevOps, QA, security and long-term evolution.

$150,000 - $500,000+

Prices vary based on project scope, complexity, timeline and requirements. Hourly rates range from $50 to $99 depending on role and seniority. Contact us for a personalized estimate.

Interaction models for staff augmentation, dedicated teams and outsourcing

Request staff augmentation

Need extra hands on your software project? Our developers can jump in at any stage - from architecture to auditing - and integrate seamlessly with your team to fill any technical gaps.

Popular choice

Hire dedicated experts

Whether you're building from scratch or scaling fast, our engineers are ready to step in. You stay in control, and we handle the code.

Outsource your project

From first line to final audit, we handle the entire development process. We will deliver secure, production-ready software, while you can focus on your business.

187+ technologies

Technologies, tools and frameworks we use

Our engineers work with 187+ technologies across blockchain, backend, frontend, mobile and DevOps - chosen for production reliability and performance.

Our engineers work with 187+ technologies across 10 categories: Frameworks, AI, Blockchains, DevOps, Clouds, Databases, Brokers, Tests, Programming, UI/UX.

  • Frameworks: Backend Frameworks: Spring Boot, Erlang OTP, NodeJS, Phoenix, NestJS, Django, FastAPI, Express.js; Front End Frameworks: React, Next.JS, Svelte, Angular, Vue.js, Remix, Astro, Nuxt.js; Mobile Apps Frameworks: iOS, Android, Flutter, React Native, Capacitors, Ionic, Swift, Kotlin, Java, Dart
  • AI: LLM Providers: OpenAI GPT, Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini, Meta Llama, Mistral AI, Cohere, Ollama, xAI Grok; AI Frameworks: LangChain, LangGraph, CrewAI, AutoGen, Hugging Face, PyTorch, TensorFlow, scikit-learn, LlamaIndex, Keras, XGBoost, LightGBM, OpenCV, spaCy, ONNX Runtime; Vector Databases: Pinecone, Weaviate, Qdrant, Chroma, pgvector, Milvus, FAISS; MLOps and Infrastructure: MLflow, Weights & Biases, DVC, Kubeflow, AWS SageMaker, Azure ML, Google Vertex AI, NVIDIA Triton, Airflow, Ray Serve, vLLM; AI Agent Tools: OpenAI Agents SDK, Claude MCP, Semantic Kernel, Haystack
  • Blockchains: Private and Public Blockchains: Ethereum, TON, Corda, Tron, Hedera, Stellar, Consensys GoQuorum, Solana, Arbitrum, Binance Smart Chain (BSC), Sei, Celo, Hyperledger, MultiversX, IOTA, Polkadot, Aptos, Neo, Flow, Algorand, Avalanche, EOS, Optimism, Polygon, Cosmos, Sui, Tezos, Ontology, Fantom, NEAR Protocol, VeChain, Base, IPFS; Cloud Blockchain Solutions: Amazon Managed Blockchain, Amazon QLDB, IBM Blockchain, Oracle Blockchain
  • DevOps: DevOps Tools: Kubernetes, Terraform, Docker, Istio, Prometheus, Grafana, Jenkins, ArgoCD, Ansible, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Pulumi, Datadog, New Relic, Vault
  • Clouds: Clouds: Amazon Web Services, Azure, Google Cloud, Cloudflare, Vercel, DigitalOcean
  • Databases: Databases: PostgreSQL, MySQL MariaDB, Redis, Cassandra, Neo4J, MongoDB, Elasticsearch, Solr, Ignite, ClickHouse, TimescaleDB, DynamoDB, Supabase, CockroachDB, ScyllaDB
  • Brokers: Event and Message Brokers: Kafka, RabbitMQ, Flink, Apache Pulsar, Amazon SQS, Amazon SNS, NATS
  • Tests: Test Automation Tools: Postman, Appium, Cucumber, Selenium, JMeter, Cypress
  • Programming: Programming Languages: Solidity, FunC, Rust, GoLang, Elixir, Erlang, C++, Java, JavaScript, TypeScript, Scala, Python, C#, .NET, PHP, Ruby, Dart, SQL
  • UI/UX: UI/UX Design Tools: Figma, Zeplin, InVision, Sketch, Miro, Marvel, Balsamiq, Photoshop, Illustrator, XD, After Effects, Corel Draw

Frameworks

Backend Frameworks 8

Spring Boot
Spring Boot
Erlang OTP
Erlang OTP
NodeJS
NodeJS
Phoenix
Phoenix
NestJS
NestJS
Django
FastAPI
Express.js

Front End Frameworks 8

React
React
Next.JS
Next.JS
Svelte
Svelte
Angular
Angular
Vue.js
Remix
Astro
Nuxt.js

Mobile Apps Frameworks 10

iOS
iOS
Android
Android
Flutter
Flutter
React Native
React Native
Capacitors
Capacitors
Ionic
Ionic
Swift
Swift
Kotlin
Kotlin
Java
Java
Dart
Trusted & Recognized

Partnerships and awards

Recognized on Clutch, GoodFirms and The Manifest for software engineering excellence

  • Partner1
  • Partner2
  • Partner3
  • Partner4
  • Partner5
65+ industry awards
Related guides: How to Choose a FinTech Company How We Build FinTech

An approach to the development cycle

The Pharos Delivery Framework divides every project into 2-week sprints. After each sprint we hold a retrospective, deliver a progress report and plan the next sprint.

  1. Team Assembly

    Our company starts and assembles an entire project specialists with the perfect blend of skills and experience to start the work.

  2. MVP

    We'll design, build and launch your MVP, ensuring it meets the core requirements of your software solution.

  3. Production

    We'll create a complete software solution that is custom-made to meet your exact specifications.

  4. Ongoing

    Continuous Support

    Our company will be right there with you, keeping your software solution running smoothly, fixing issues and rolling out updates.

Proven Results

Kimlic. Blockchain-based KYC

Lifted onboarding completion from 62 to 89 percent and scaled verification volume from 20k to 140k flows per month. Measured…

Pleenk. Secure Payments Platform

Reduced payment authorization p95 latency from 820ms to 180ms and cut KYC decision time from 45s to 4.2s. Measured against…

Nextcheck, the KYC Platform

Automated KYC at 5,000+ verifications per day with 99.8% OCR accuracy

Banking build insights

A stainless steel vault door slightly ajar revealing a stack of translucent compliance certificates with embossed seals.
Engineering

FinTech Compliance Checklist 2026: PCI DSS, SOC 2, GDPR and Beyond

What compliance certifications does a FinTech product need? The required certifications depend on your product type, target market and data handling practices. At minimum, most FinTech products need SOC 2 Type II for data security, PCI DSS if handling payment card data and GDPR compliance for EU users. PCI DSS compliance checklist PCI DSS applies […]

Dmytro Nasyrov 2 min read
Read
Two finance operations colleagues at adjacent desks matching a customer balance figure on an internal ledger printout against a bank statement drawn from a separate system, the daily reconciliation an e-money safeguarding team has to prove
Engineering

E-Money Safeguarding Reconciliation

An EMI or PI CTO has to prove on any business day that customer balances in the ledger equal the safeguarding accounts. No EU instrument in force names how often that comparison runs. This walks the invariants that do exist, the way each one breaks and the control that catches the break, ordered by how fast the control fires.

Dmytro Nasyrov 22 min read
Read
View all articles
Skip glossary

Banking software glossary 6

Core banking system
The central platform that holds accounts, processes transactions and keeps balances. Modern builds favor cloud-native, API-first cores over legacy monoliths.
Neobank
A fully digital bank with no branches, usually built on modern cloud infrastructure and often on a banking license held by a partner. Faster and cheaper to launch than a traditional bank.
BaaS (banking as a service)
Licensed banking infrastructure - accounts, cards, payments - exposed via APIs so a company can offer banking without holding its own license.
KYC / AML
Know Your Customer and Anti-Money-Laundering checks that a bank must run to onboard customers and monitor activity. Mandatory, audited and central to any banking build.
ISO 20022
The modern messaging standard for payments and financial data that banks are migrating to, enabling richer, structured payment information across systems and borders.
Open banking
Regulated APIs that let customers securely share bank data and initiate payments through third parties, underpinning account aggregation and new payment experiences.

Frequently asked questions about Banking Software Development

Last updated:

  • Copy link Copies a direct link to this answer to your clipboard.

    No. Pharos Production builds banking software; the client (or a sponsor bank partner) holds the charter. We integrate with your sponsor bank or BaaS provider (Column, Treasury Prime, Unit, Increase, Synapse) and design the compliance program with your legal counsel, but we do not hold banking or money transmitter licenses ourselves.

  • Copy link Copies a direct link to this answer to your clipboard.

    For early-stage neobanks, BaaS (Unit, Treasury Prime, Column) ships in weeks with inherited compliance - that is usually the right starting point. Move to custom when: you hit BaaS pricing or feature ceilings, you need products the provider has not built, you need direct sponsor-bank economics at scale or regulatory ownership becomes a differentiator. We have recommended BaaS for many engagements and helped others migrate from BaaS to custom when the economics flipped.

  • Copy link Copies a direct link to this answer to your clipboard.

    BaaS-powered neobank: 3-5 months from start to public launch including compliance onboarding with the BaaS provider. Custom-built neobank with a sponsor bank: 5-9 months including ledger, card issuance, KYC, mobile app, customer support tooling and sponsor-bank integration. Regulatory review and UAT with the sponsor bank typically adds 4-8 weeks to either path.

  • Copy link Copies a direct link to this answer to your clipboard.

    Yes. We integrate with FIS, Fiserv, Jack Henry, nCino, Mambu and modern core banking platforms (Thought Machine, 10x Banking, Mambu) via SOAP, REST and event-driven middleware.

    We build an abstraction layer so the product code stays decoupled from the core - your core upgrade does not break your customer-facing app, and your customer-facing feature cycle is not blocked by the core release cadence.

  • Copy link Copies a direct link to this answer to your clipboard.

    Pharos infrastructure is PCI DSS architected and aligned with ISO 27001. We minimize PCI scope via tokenization (Marqeta, Stripe Issuing, Galileo) so the primary account number never enters client logs.

    SOC 2 evidence collection is automated via Drata, Vanta or Secureframe. Accredited CPAs issue the SOC 2 attestation - Pharos prepares the evidence and walks you through the audit.

  • Copy link Copies a direct link to this answer to your clipboard.

    Yes. We integrate Sumsub, Onfido, Persona, Jumio, Alloy, Plaid Identity Verification and Trulioo for identity verification and risk scoring.

    Sanctions screening via Chainalysis for crypto-adjacent products or WorldCheck for traditional FinTech. We design the KYC flow to match the sponsor bank's risk appetite - low-risk auto-approve, medium-risk enhanced review, high-risk + PEP + sanction hits go to manual review with full audit trail.

  • Copy link Copies a direct link to this answer to your clipboard.

    Banking systems typically target RTO < 1 hour and RPO < 5 minutes. We design multi-AZ active-active deployments with cross-region standby for regional failover.

    Database backups run every 5 minutes with point-in-time recovery. Quarterly DR drills are included in the retainer - we actually fail over to the standby region and measure recovery time. A tabletop DR plan is not DR; we run the drill.

  • Copy link Copies a direct link to this answer to your clipboard.

    A digital banking MVP typically runs $80,000-$200,000 and a full platform $200,000-$800,000 and up. Ongoing support retainers start from $12,000/month.

    Licensing model, compliance and core integration drive the number.

  • Copy link Copies a direct link to this answer to your clipboard.

    A digital banking MVP ships in 4-7 months and a full platform in 9-18 months including sponsor-bank integration. Compliance, security, KYC/AML and core integration set the schedule far more than the app.

  • Copy link Copies a direct link to this answer to your clipboard.

    KYC and AML, PCI DSS for cards, strong customer authentication, data protection, plus the regulatory regime of each market and often SOC 2 for partners. These are mandatory and audited, and shape the architecture from the start.

  • Copy link Copies a direct link to this answer to your clipboard.

    Compliance and audits, KYC/AML and fraud screening, BaaS or processing fees, infrastructure that scales with customers and transactions and continuous security and regulatory updates. These recur for the life of the product.

  • Copy link Copies a direct link to this answer to your clipboard.

    We decline full core banking replacements without sponsor bank or charter partners, basic deposit products where BaaS would ship in weeks, lending products without regulatory review of usury and disclosure rules, crypto-adjacent banking without jurisdictional analysis and projects where the client has no compliance program to operate the software. Forcing a banking build without the regulatory foundation damages everyone.

The Pharos takeaway on banking software development

Banking software rewards teams that treat compliance as architecture, not paperwork. Pharos ships banking systems with PCI DSS, PSD2 and ISO 20022 traceability from commit level, and declines engagements where regulatory posture is an afterthought[11].

Book a 30-minute banking platform readiness call
Dmytro Nasyrov, Founder and CTO at Pharos Production
Dmytro Nasyrov Founder & CTO Let's work together!

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We typically reply within 4 hours. Prefer email? hello@pharosproduction.com

What happens next?

  1. Contact us

    Contact us today to discuss your project. We're ready to review your request promptly and guide you on the best next steps for collaboration

    Same day

  2. NDA

    We're committed to keeping your information confidential, so we'll sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement

    1 day

  3. Plan the Goals

    After we chat about your goals and needs, we'll craft a comprehensive proposal detailing the project scope, team, timeline and budget

    3-5 days

  4. Finalize the Details

    Let's connect on Google Meet to go through the proposal and confirm all the details together!

    1-2 days

  5. Sign the Contract

    As soon as the contract is signed, our dedicated team will jump into action on your project!

    Same day

Our offices

Headquarters in Las Vegas, Nevada. Engineering office in Kyiv, Ukraine.

We also work with clients through dedicated local teams in Las Vegas, New York and San Francisco.

Las Vegas, United States

Headquarters PT
5348 Vegas Dr, Las Vegas, NV 89108, United States

Kyiv, Ukraine

Engineering office EET (UTC+2)
44-B Eugene Konovalets Str. Suite 201, Kyiv 01133, Ukraine

Let's work together!

Leave a request and we will contact you as soon as possible

Contact form for Pharos Production. Submit your name, email and message to reach our team directly. Free consultation, no commitment.

Your contact details
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We typically reply within 4 hours. Prefer email? hello@pharosproduction.com