Technology architecture for a fintech MVP
Turning a digital lending model into a technology design the team could build, integrate and run.
- Client
- Digital lending start-up
- Delivery
- Freetown
- Focus
- Architecture, integration, controls
- Outcome
- Integration-ready MVP design
The situation
A digital lending start-up needed customer onboarding, identity checks, lending, repayments and reporting to work together for its first product. Building a full lending engine from scratch would have been slow and costly.
The challenge
Turn the business model into a technology design with clear system boundaries: keep the customer experience, operational data and controls in the start-up's hands, while using specialist providers for core lending infrastructure.
What we did
We mapped the workflows for customers, field officers and administrators, chose the specialist providers to integrate, and designed the architecture in three layers:
| Layer | What it does |
|---|---|
| Product and operations | Onboarding, loan requests, field workflows, repayments and management dashboards. |
| Integration and control | Secure connections, data mapping, event handling, synchronisation and reconciliation. |
| Lending infrastructure | Loan origination, approvals, disbursement and repayment tracking, from a specialist provider. |
We also set out the data, audit and reconciliation controls, data-protection requirements for legal review, and a phased delivery plan to take the product from set-up to operational readiness.
What changed
The start-up had an integration-ready architecture covering onboarding, transactions, repayment and reporting, with clear boundaries between its own product and its providers. Because the integration layer is separate, the lending provider can be changed later without rebuilding the product.
Scope note: this engagement covered architecture, requirements, integration planning and implementation readiness. It does not report post-launch results.
What we learned
Don't rebuild what specialists already do well. Own the customer experience, the data and the controls, and integrate the rest.
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