Payments Field Guide Week in Review: Best Discussions

I am currently planning to sign a contract in five days with Plaid to get my AI financial budgeting app logged in with real-time bank spending data. Does anybody have experience with working with Plaid as an AI startup and is there anything that I should look out for or be worried about?

Hi everyone! I'm conducting a research study for my academic project on how early financial experiences during childhood may influence the way we use FinTech services as adults (UPI, digital wallets, online banking, etc.).

The survey is completely anonymous and confidential, taking about 8-10 minutes to complete, and has no right or wrong answers. Many people from all backgrounds share the common experiences described in the survey, so please don't hesitate to participate.

Your response would mean a lot and really help me reach my target sample size. Please share with anyone who might be willing to help!

Link: [https://forms.gle/JDW3FpV5HYefJmcG8](https://forms.gle/JDW3FpV5HYefJmcG8)

Thank you so much! 🙏

[https://linkedin.com/company/fundvora](https://linkedin.com/company/fundvora)

[https://instagram.com/tryfundvora](https://instagram.com/tryfundvora)

I looked at every finance app on the market and realised none of them were built for teens

Every budgeting app has the same problem. Built for adults. Boring by design. The moment you open them, it feels like homework.

No teen is opening a spreadsheet voluntarily.

\-We're motivated by competition.

\-By our friends.

\-By not wanting to lose.

So I built Fundvora, a social finance app where teens have useful budgeting tools, challenge each other to financial duels, earn XP for competing, form crews, and build real money habits without it ever feeling like education.

77% of teens have no savings habit. Nobody is solving this in a way that actually reaches us.

I decided to be the one who does.

Site is almost live. Duels are real. Just getting started.

https://preview.redd.it/6rhdbymm6fug1.png?width=1904&format=png&auto=webp&s=c7580692e8d299ffb2a5d51424caf118324cb5d8

Hi all, I'm an equity research analyst, and I've released a report about Coinbase and why I think it's a great investment for many reasons. Most importantly, I think they're building an incredible stablecoin infrastructure that is going to revolutionize financial services and how people transfer money and make payments across the world.

This isn't self-promotion or advertising at all, but I would love it if you guys could read my report on Coinbase and let me know if there's anything that I missed or I might be wrong about. Just would love any feedback on what I might be missing.

Here's the the full in-depth report: https://open.substack.com/pub/mulberryfinancial/p/why-gold-is-falling-and-why-the-banks?utm\\\_source=share&utm\\\_medium=android&r=4af6n2

I’ve worked on GKE platforms for banks/fintechs, and I keep seeing the same issue:

Private cluster = PCI compliant, Auditors disagree

So I wrote this based on real deployments:

[https://medium.com/@rasvihostings/building-a-pci-dss-compliant-gke-framework-for-financial-institutions-33868007fd6a](https://medium.com/@rasvihostings/building-a-pci-dss-compliant-gke-framework-for-financial-institutions-33868007fd6a)

What it covers (Part 1):

* Fully private GKE (no public endpoints or node IPs)

* Proper VPC + IP segmentation

* Cloud NAT (outbound only)

* Private Service Connect (no internet to GCP APIs)

* Shielded nodes + COS

* RBAC (no cluster-admin for humans)

* CIS benchmark + Pod Security Standards

Biggest gaps I see in real teams:

* RBAC too permissive

* “Private” clusters still exposed indirectly

* No real hardening baseline

If you’re building GKE in a regulated environment, curious how you're handling PCI today.

I am looking at our balance sheet and it is genuinely painful to see how much capital we have just sitting idle in pre funded accounts across five different countries just to make our ""instant"" payouts work. My CFO is breathing down my neck about capital efficiency for 2026 and honestly the traditional banking answer is always just "open another account with a bigger correspondent bank"

I keep looking into how to reduce nostro balances without increasing settlement risk and it feels like the only real answer is moving to a just in time settlement model using stablecoins. We looked at a couple platforms but they seemed to be more focused on the crypto native side and I am worried about the gap between our US bank and the payout rails. Is anyone running a 1:1 settlement flow that doesn't require millions in "dead money" sitting in overseas vaults just to keep the lights on?

I’m a fraud manager at a small credit union in North Carolina. I just feel like these “solutions” that come out are so expensive. Then Fiserv has control over our fraud rules, so even if we can muster up some cash, we can’t do much to change our fraud rules that they set.

Anyone know of a fintech app maybe with a subscription under $50/month to fix fraud issues around data protection? Or do you work at a similar size bank and have a work around? Does your processor do the heavy lifting?

Happy to discuss more if you have questions.