Building Financial Products Autonomously with Skaleet

Sources & scope note: This article is a synthesis of the materials in the provided dossier (Open Future coverage plus referenced third-party interviews and articles). Any timelines, cost ranges, uptime targets, and market-size figures are presented as stated in those sources and should be validated against Skaleet documentation and your institution’s due diligence process before making procurement or architecture decisions.

Skaleet enables autonomous financial product development

Author context (why this lens)

I approach core banking and platform autonomy from hands-on experience building and scaling regulated fintech and payments systems in Mexico and Latin America, where vendor lock-in, integration complexity, and change-management constraints directly impact time-to-market and unit economics. This piece does not claim firsthand implementation experience with Skaleet; it focuses on evaluating the autonomy narrative described in the sources.

• Modular, API-first core banking primitives let teams assemble products like building blocks—without rewriting the core.
• Cloud-native microservices and event-driven processing support real-time experiences and operational resilience.
• No-code/low-code configuration shifts routine product and compliance changes from engineering backlogs to business teams.
• Open integration enables “best-of-breed” KYC, fraud, payments, and credit decisioning—reducing vendor lock-in.
• Faster implementations (months, not years) translate into earlier launches and lower opportunity cost in embedded finance.

Understanding Skaleet’s Modular Approach to Core Banking

Core banking modernization has become less about swapping one big system for another and more about changing the structure of how banking capabilities are delivered. Skaleet’s proposition sits squarely in that shift: instead of a monolithic “everything-in-one” core, it offers a modular platform where key banking functions—accounts, payments, cards, lending, compliance—are delivered as separable capabilities exposed through APIs.

The practical implication is composability. Product teams can combine pre-built banking primitives to create new customer propositions without having to re-engineer foundational elements like ledgering, settlements, balance management, traceability, and regulatory reporting. Those elements are essential, but they rarely differentiate a business; Skaleet’s pitch is to industrialise that “non-differentiating complexity” so institutions can spend their scarce time on product design and distribution.

Modularity also changes the risk profile of change. Instead of treating core banking as a single fragile block where any modification triggers long testing and deployment windows, a modular approach supports incremental evolution: add a module, extend a service, or replace a component without forcing a full-scale overhaul. This aligns with the broader industry view that “rip-and-replace” core replacement is often impractical and high-risk, and that modernization is better pursued piece by piece.

Skaleet positions itself not just as a core, but as an orchestration layer for open ecosystems. Institutions can choose which capabilities to adopt now, which to defer, and which to source from specialist partners—while keeping the core coordination, data flows, and business logic coherent. In a market shaped by embedded finance and Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS), that ability to evolve continuously—without surrendering control to a single vendor roadmap—is central to the autonomy story.

The Challenges of Traditional Core Banking Systems

Traditional systems were built for a world of stable product sets, long innovation cycles, and tightly controlled channels. That context has eroded, but the architecture remains. The result is a familiar paradox for modern institutions: customers expect fintech-speed innovation, while regulation and operational complexity demand enterprise-grade robustness.

In practice, legacy monolithic systems tend to create three compounding constraints.

First is time. Traditional implementations commonly stretch 12 to 24 months, and the rigidity of the architecture—combined with divergent stakeholder requirements and integration complexity—frequently drives budget overruns. Even after implementation, product teams can wait 6 to 18 months for “simple” features because changes require vendor customisation, extended testing cycles, and tightly scheduled deployment windows.

Second is lock-in. When a core is tightly coupled and vendor-managed, institutions inherit the vendor’s pace of change. That dependency becomes strategic: product roadmaps are constrained by what the core provider will build, when they will build it, and how they will prioritise it across their customer base. In fast-moving markets, that can translate into delayed market entry and missed revenue.

Third is cost structure. Banks report spending 60–70% of IT budgets on maintenance rather than innovation. That maintenance burden is not just a line item; it is an opportunity cost. Every euro and every engineering hour spent keeping the lights on is capacity not spent on new products, better onboarding, improved risk controls, or new distribution partnerships.

These constraints become more acute as embedded finance and BaaS models expand. Multi-tenant operations, rapid partner onboarding, and ecosystem orchestration were not design goals of legacy cores. As a result, institutions trying to compete with fintechs that can launch in six months or less face a structural disadvantage: their core banking foundation is optimised for stability at the expense of agility.

The Growth of Embedded Finance and Its Implications

Embedded finance has shifted from a niche concept to a defining market force—and it is unforgiving to slow infrastructure. The market is described as having grown from $105 billion in 2024 to a projected $1.7 trillion by 2034, implying a 31% CAGR. Whether an institution is a bank, a payment institution, or a non-financial brand launching financial products, the direction is clear: more financial services will be distributed through non-bank channels, and more products will be assembled through partnerships.

That growth changes what “core banking” must do. It is no longer enough to run accounts and reconcile transactions. Embedded finance models demand:

• rapid experimentation (because product-market fit is discovered, not declared),
• multi-tenant architectures (because one platform may serve many brands),
• partner ecosystem orchestration (because KYC, fraud, cards, payments, and credit decisioning may come from different specialists),
• and configurable compliance controls (because regulatory obligations remain with the regulated entity even when distribution is outsourced).

Legacy cores struggle here because they were designed as closed systems. They assume a bank owns the full stack, controls the channel, and changes slowly. Embedded finance assumes the opposite: distribution is fragmented, partners are swapped, and product iteration is continuous.

This is where the opportunity cost of slow change becomes existential. If fintechs can launch competitive products in six months or less, institutions without agile infrastructure risk irrelevance—not because they lack capital or licences, but because they cannot ship.

Skaleet’s positioning is that a modular, API-first core banking platform can act as the “evolutionary infrastructure” embedded finance requires: stable enough to satisfy regulatory and operational demands, but flexible enough to onboard partners, configure products per tenant, and iterate at market speed. In embedded finance, autonomy is not a nice-to-have; it is the ability to keep up with the distribution layer.

Skaleet’s Cloud-Native Architecture and Microservices

Skaleet’s architecture is described as cloud-native and microservices-based, with every function exposed through APIs. That combination matters because it changes how banking capabilities are built, deployed, and evolved.

In a microservices model, each banking capability—accounts, payments, cards, lending, compliance—operates as an independent service. Teams can configure, extend, or replace a service without “touching” the entire core. This is a structural break from monolithic cores, where even small changes can cascade across tightly coupled components and require coordinated releases.

Cloud-native delivery adds another layer: infrastructure management is separated from customers, and the platform can deliver ongoing feature releases without disruptive version upgrades typical of on-premise systems. For institutions, that can translate into less operational overhead and a more predictable path for updates and patches.

Skaleet also emphasises event-driven, real-time processing. Instead of batch cycles, actions like payment initiation, balance updates, or threshold breaches trigger events that flow through the system. This enables immediate responses—instant notifications, real-time analytics, dynamic limit adjustments—and supports operational needs such as real-time fraud detection, intraday liquidity management, and immediate reconciliation.

Resilience and security are positioned as “table stakes” in this model. Skaleet describes defense-in-depth security (encryption at rest and in transit, role-based access controls, API authentication and authorisation, continuous monitoring) and operational resilience through multi-region deployment, automated failover, and disaster recovery. The platform targets 99.95% uptime SLAs, with RTO under one hour and RPO under 15 minutes—metrics that reflect the expectation that downtime is not merely technical debt but direct reputational and revenue risk.

For regulated institutions, the architectural point is straightforward: cloud-native microservices are not just a modern engineering preference. They are a way to reduce the blast radius of change, support continuous evolution, and deliver real-time experiences that customers now treat as baseline.

API-First Design: Empowering Financial Product Teams

“API-first” is often used as marketing shorthand, but Skaleet frames it as a foundational design choice: every function exposes APIs, and product teams consume banking primitives through documented interfaces. The consequence is that teams can assemble products by composition rather than by custom core development.

A concrete example offered is a neobank launching a teen banking product. Instead of building backend logic from scratch, teams can configure account types, spending limits, parental controls, and card parameters through APIs. The claimed outcome is a compression of time-to-market from quarters to weeks.

API-first design also changes integration economics. In traditional environments, partner integrations are complex, vendor-managed projects. In an API-first platform, they become repeatable patterns: standard connectors, consistent authentication, and predictable data flows. That matters in embedded finance, where the ability to onboard partners quickly is a growth lever.

Skaleet’s approach is also linked to modularity and independent deployability: if services are truly modular, they must have clean interfaces. In an interview with IBS Intelligence, Skaleet’s Chief Product Officer, Ségolène Demoulin, argues API-first architecture matters for three reasons: it enforces true modularity, accelerates integration with specialised partners, and enhances scalability and agility by enabling rapid experimentation and refinement of individual components without full-system changes. She also notes Skaleet designed service components along the BIAN framework to support standardised, interoperable banking services.

The strategic effect is autonomy. When product teams can access core capabilities through APIs, they are less dependent on vendor customisation cycles. They can iterate faster, test new propositions, and evolve products as customer expectations shift—without waiting for the next release window of a monolithic core. In markets where speed determines outcomes, API-first becomes a business capability, not a technical detail.

Integrating Specialized Services with Skaleet

Skaleet’s modularity is paired with a “best-of-breed” integration philosophy. Rather than forcing institutions into an all-in-one stack, the platform is positioned as an orchestration layer: institutions can select specialised providers for KYC, fraud detection, payment processing, or credit scoring, and integrate them through standardised connectors.

This matters because specialisation is now the norm in financial infrastructure. Fraud prevention, identity verification, and credit decisioning evolve quickly, often driven by new data sources and AI techniques. A core banking platform that locks an institution into a single bundled approach can become a constraint. Skaleet’s promise is “vendor optionality”: when a better fraud engine or more cost-effective payment rail emerges, institutions can swap providers without disrupting operations.

The brief provides a scenario: a payment institution expanding into consumer credit. Instead of migrating to a different core with lending capabilities, it integrates a specialised credit decisioning engine through Skaleet’s API layer. Skaleet handles account linkage, transaction processing, regulatory reporting, and reconciliation, while the credit engine focuses on risk assessment. The claimed implementation time is 8–12 weeks versus 12–18 months for a platform migration.

Skaleet’s own product catalogue also includes modules that can be used standalone or within its Core Banking Platform. One example is a credit module designed to manage the full loan lifecycle—from application to servicing and debt collection—with configurable workflows across acquisition, approval, closing, servicing, and collection. Skaleet says the module supports a fully online loan application process in three minutes, and can connect to complementary modules such as KYC tools, reporting, and electronic signature via the platform’s open architecture (as described in a Financial IT announcement about Skaleet’s loan module).

In embedded finance and BaaS, integration is not a one-time project; it is an operating model. Skaleet’s approach is to make integration a repeatable, governed capability—so institutions can keep upgrading parts of their stack without re-platforming the whole business.

Operational Autonomy Through No-Code/Low-Code Solutions

Skaleet’s autonomy narrative is not only about APIs and microservices; it also hinges on who inside an institution can make changes—and how quickly. The platform includes a configuration layer described as no-code/low-code, designed so product and operations teams can define financial products, pricing structures, workflows, and business rules without developer intervention.

The distinction is important: it is not positioned as replacing engineering, but as protecting engineering capacity for differentiation. Routine changes—new fee structures, interest calculation methods, transaction limits—can be handled through visual interfaces. Operations teams can adjust risk thresholds, approval workflows, or reporting parameters in response to regulatory changes. These configurations can be deployed instantly across the platform, reducing the backlog of “small” changes that often clog core banking delivery.

The brief contrasts this with traditional change cycles. A typical core banking change can require business requirements, technical specifications, development sprints, QA, UAT, and scheduled deployment—consuming 4–8 weeks and multiple handoffs. With configuration tools, the same change can take hours and require one person. Over a year, that compounds into “hundreds of accelerated decisions,” with reduced opportunity cost.

This configurability extends into compliance. Skaleet embeds capabilities such as automated KYC/AML checks, transaction monitoring, regulatory reporting, audit trails, and data residency controls. Crucially, it claims compliance rules can be adjusted through configuration rather than code. In jurisdictions where regulations change frequently, the ability to adapt monitoring parameters, reporting formats, or data retention policies in days rather than months is framed as a risk reducer.

Operational autonomy is also a governance challenge: it requires capability. The brief notes institutions must build internal expertise in platform configuration, API integration, product design, and data analysis, often through centres of excellence that standardise approaches and train teams. In other words, no-code/low-code can remove friction—but only if the organisation is prepared to own the operating model.

Comparative Analysis: Skaleet vs. Traditional Banking Solutions

Core banking choices are often framed as “legacy vs modern,” but the more useful comparison is between optimisation targets: stability, speed, or sustained autonomy. The brief lays out three archetypes—legacy monolithic, SaaS all-in-one, and modular platform (Skaleet)—and the trade-offs are stark.

Legacy monolithic systems prioritise stability and control, but at the cost of speed and flexibility. Implementations can take 18–36 months, customisation is high (often requiring custom code), partner integration is complex and vendor-managed, and product launch speed can stretch to 6–12 months. Operational autonomy is low because changes depend on vendor cycles, and technology evolution is locked to the vendor roadmap.

All-in-one SaaS platforms improve deployment speed—6–12 months implementation and 3–6 months product launches—but can impose constraints through opinionated architectures and pre-selected partner ecosystems. They may reduce infrastructure burden, yet still limit long-term flexibility if the platform’s direction diverges from the institution’s strategy.

Skaleet’s modular platform model is positioned as optimising for sustained autonomy and evolution. The brief suggests 4–6 months implementation, low customisation effort through visual configuration, open API-based partner integration, and product launch speed of 2–8 weeks. Operational autonomy is described as high due to configurability, and technology evolution is framed as independent component selection rather than vendor lock-in.

The deeper difference is strategic. In markets shaped by embedded finance, BaaS, and rapid regulatory change, the ability to continuously adapt is itself a competitive advantage. A modular platform aims to make change routine rather than exceptional.

This does not eliminate complexity; it redistributes it. Institutions gain freedom to choose components, but they must govern integrations, data flows, and operational processes across a broader ecosystem. Skaleet’s pitch is that it provides the orchestration layer—standardised APIs, connectors, and configurable business logic—so institutions can manage that ecosystem without losing coherence.

In short, the comparison is less about which system has “more features” and more about who controls the roadmap: the institution, or its provider.

Real-World Applications of Skaleet in Financial Services

Skaleet’s use cases cluster around three segments where autonomy and speed are especially valuable: scaling fintechs, regulated institutions modernising legacy operations, and BaaS/embedded finance providers managing multi-tenant complexity.

Fintechs scaling beyond MVP. Early-stage fintechs often launch on BaaS providers to avoid infrastructure complexity. But as they reach roughly 50,000–100,000 customers, limitations can surface: inflexible product structures, rising per-transaction costs, dependency on provider roadmaps, and difficulty differentiating through backend capabilities. Skaleet is positioned as a “graduation platform,” offering enterprise-grade infrastructure with startup agility. The brief describes a digital bank processing 2 million monthly transactions gaining control over core logic and integrating specialised services (fraud detection, credit decisioning, cross-border payments). The economic shift is from transaction-based fees to infrastructure costs under direct control, improving unit economics as volume scales.

Payment and credit institutions modernising without a big-bang replacement. For regulated institutions with millions of customers, ripping out a legacy core is often too risky. Skaleet is framed as enabling a “speedboat strategy”: launch new products and segments on modern infrastructure while the legacy system continues running existing business. Over time—described as a 3–5 year horizon—institutions can migrate additional product lines gradually, reducing blast radius and building confidence without a catastrophic cutover.

BaaS and embedded finance providers. Providers serving non-financial brands need multi-tenant operations, white-label flexibility, and rapid partner onboarding. Skaleet’s multi-tenant architecture with per-tenant configuration is positioned as enabling onboarding in weeks rather than months, with isolated data and customised products per tenant while sharing underlying infrastructure for cost efficiency. The brief claims BaaS providers can reduce per-partner implementation costs by 60–70% compared to custom development approaches, enabling scale from 5–10 partners to 50–100 partners without proportional infrastructure investment.

There are also named examples in the broader material. Skaleet has been implemented in around 30 countries, and is described as having over 30 customers in 15 countries. It has been cited in connection with projects such as La Banque Postale’s Ezyness BaaS offering (ten services rolled out in three years, operating costs cut by more than half, time-to-market reduced by a factor of five) and a neobank launch with Française des Jeux in five months. In awards coverage, Skaleet’s low-code/no-code Process Automation is credited with enabling NiuPay to personalise services without excessive IT investment, and a payments platform for Score & Secure Payment is described as providing direct access to the SEPA network while ensuring AML compliance.

Taken together, these applications underline the same theme: autonomy is not abstract. It shows up as faster launches, lower integration friction, and the ability to scale product variety and partner complexity without turning every change into a core banking project.

The Economic Advantages of Skaleet’s Modular Banking Platform

Core banking economics are often misread because decision-makers focus on licence fees and ignore implementation, maintenance, integration, and—most importantly—opportunity cost. Skaleet’s economic case is built around faster delivery, lower operational burden, and a cost structure aligned with growth.

Implementation and migration investment. The brief suggests Skaleet implementations range from 4–6 months for new institutions and 8–12 months for migrations from legacy systems. Total investment is described as typically €300K to €1.5M depending on complexity, compared with €2M to €5M+ for traditional implementations. The difference is not only cost but timing: earlier launches mean earlier revenue and stronger competitive positioning.

Operational cost structure. Skaleet is described as using usage-based pricing—paying for active accounts, transaction volumes, and optional modules rather than flat enterprise licences. This can benefit growing fintechs by avoiding overinvestment in unused capacity and scaling costs more predictably with revenue. The brief also claims many institutions report 40–50% lower operational costs after migration, attributing savings to cloud-native infrastructure (less infrastructure management), automated updates and patches, and configuration-based changes that reduce development cycles for routine modifications.

Opportunity value of agility. The most consequential economic lever is speed. The brief offers a comparison: a payment institution identifying an opportunity for embedded credit might need 12–18 months to launch on traditional infrastructure, versus 8–12 weeks with Skaleet. In fast-growing markets, a 12-month acceleration can outweigh platform cost differences by an order of magnitude; the brief frames the revenue impact as potentially 10–20x the platform cost difference in competitive environments where timing determines winners.

This is why modularity and autonomy translate into economics. When product iteration is cheaper and faster, institutions can test more ideas, respond to competitors, and adapt to regulation without treating every change as a capital project. Where partners and propositions evolve quickly, the ability to onboard and iterate in weeks is not just operational efficiency—it is revenue strategy.

Conclusion: Embracing the Future of Core Banking with Skaleet

The Imperative for Modernization in Financial Services

Core banking modernization is no longer optional because the market has moved. Customers expect real-time experiences and rapid product iteration; regulators demand resilience, auditability, and strong controls; and embedded finance is expanding the number of brands offering financial products. Traditional cores—built for slower cycles—struggle under these combined pressures.

The costs of standing still are measurable: long implementation timelines, vendor lock-in, and IT budgets dominated by maintenance rather than innovation. When product teams wait months for changes, the institution is not merely slow—it is structurally disadvantaged against competitors that can ship in weeks.

Modernization, however, is not synonymous with a risky “big bang” replacement. The emerging consensus described in the material is that transformation works best when it is modular and incremental, delivering value domain by domain while containing risk.

Skaleet’s Unique Value Proposition

Skaleet’s value proposition is to industrialise the non-differentiating complexity of banking—ledgering, settlements, reporting, traceability—while giving institutions autonomy where it matters: product design, partner choice, and operational change.

Three pillars stand out:

• Modular, cloud-native microservices that can evolve independently.
• API-first composability that turns core capabilities into reusable building blocks for product teams.
• No-code/low-code configuration that shifts routine changes from engineering queues to business and operations teams.

Add to that an orchestration model designed for best-of-breed integrations, and the platform is positioned as an antidote to vendor lock-in: not a closed stack, but a foundation for continuous evolution.

Navigating the Transition to Modular Banking

The transition path matters as much as the destination. The brief outlines a phased approach:

• Phase 1 (4–6 months): configure core capabilities, establish integration architecture, migrate essential data, and launch a pilot product or segment—prioritising stability over breadth.
• Phase 2: expand products at 4–8 week intervals and optimise operations, monitoring, and compliance workflows.
• Phase 3: deepen ecosystem integrations and advanced capabilities such as complex pricing, multi-currency, or cross-border operations.

For legacy-heavy institutions, the “speedboat strategy” is central: run new products on modern infrastructure while legacy systems continue serving existing business, then migrate gradually as confidence grows. This limits blast radius and avoids the operational paralysis that can accompany full replacement attempts.

The Role of Agility in Competitive Advantage

Agility is often treated as a cultural aspiration, but in core banking it is an architectural outcome. When teams can configure products in hours instead of waiting weeks for development cycles, they can respond to regulation faster, test new propositions, and iterate based on customer behaviour.

In embedded finance, agility also determines partner economics. Multi-tenant onboarding in weeks rather than months expands the addressable market, enabling smaller partners that cannot justify long implementations. Over time, that speed compounds into scale: more partners, more products, and more revenue opportunities—without proportional increases in infrastructure cost.

Future Trends in Core Banking Technology

The direction of travel described across the material is consistent: away from rigid legacy infrastructure and toward modular, cloud-native cores designed for interoperability, resilience, and continuous change. Regulatory pressure in Europe—cited in connection with PSD3 and DORA—reinforces the need for security and operational resilience “from the ground up,” not bolted on later.

AI is also framed as increasingly relevant, but dependent on accessible, usable data—something legacy systems often silo. In that context, platforms that support real-time event-driven processing and easier integration with specialist partners (including fraud prevention and compliance tooling) are better positioned to adopt AI-driven capabilities such as anomaly detection and dynamic pricing.

Skaleet’s bet is that the future core is not a static system to be maintained, but an evolutionary platform—one that lets institutions build, launch, and adapt financial products with genuine autonomy while meeting the robustness demands of regulated finance.