# TECHNOLOGY & INFRASTRUCTURE CONSULTING

## Building Payment Infrastructure That Scales

Regulated institutions are advised on designing and strengthening payment infrastructure technology that operates reliably under scale and regulatory scrutiny. Drawing on experience supporting issuer-grade systems in production, focus is placed on architecture, security, and operating model decisions that ensure infrastructure remains resilient, auditable, and scalable—before growth or compliance risk compounds.

## Advisory Focus

## Building Blocks for Scalable Payment Infrastructure

CARD91 provides execution-informed advisory across the core layers of regulated payment infrastructure—covering architecture, deployment strategy, security, and operational governance.

## Payments Architecture Advisory

We help institutions design core payment architecture that scales predictably without introducing fragility.

- Issuance and transaction processing system design
- Authorization, clearing, and settlement flow structuring
- API-first, modular, and service-oriented architecture planning
- High availability, redundancy, and fault isolation design
- Throughput, latency, and peak-load capacity planning

## Infrastructure & Deployment Strategy

We advise on infrastructure models suited for regulated, high-availability payment workloads.

- Cloud, on-premise, and hybrid deployment strategy evaluation
- Regulated cloud environment and workload segregation planning
- Network isolation, access control, and perimeter security design
- Capacity forecasting, cost control, and scaling models
- Disaster recovery, failover, and business continuity architecture

## Security & Compliance Architecture

Security and compliance are designed into the infrastructure—not added after deployment.

- Alignment with RBI, PCI-DSS, and applicable global standards
- Data localization and data residency architecture
- Encryption, key management, and privileged access control
- Fraud monitoring, control frameworks, and risk signal visibility
- Audit-readiness, logging, traceability, and evidence systems

## Operations & Governance Design

We help define operating models that support reliability, accountability, and regulatory oversight at scale.

- Incident response, escalation, and post-incident review frameworks
- System monitoring, alerting, and observability design
- Vendor and third-party infrastructure risk governance
- Reconciliation, exception handling, and settlement reporting systems
- Regulatory visibility and compliance reporting workflows

## Advisory Leadership

## Subject-Matter Experts in Regulated Payment Programs

CARD91’s advisory teams bring 100+ years of collective experience across regulated payment programs. Supported by strong academic foundations, including IIT Kanpur, our advisors work one-on-one with leadership teams to validate critical decisions—ensuring programs are structured to launch cleanly, scale responsibly, and remain audit-ready.

### Leadership Cards

Ajay Pandey, Founder of CARD91 with 25+ years of experience in building and scaling payment and fintech businesses.

A.G. Ramakrishna, 25+ years across banking and fintech, leading product strategy and ecosystem partnerships.

Navneet Kumar, 25+ years of experience building scalable banking and payments technology platforms.

Puneet Mathur, 25+ years in enterprise architecture, integrations, and large-scale banking systems.

## Advisory Coverage

## Infrastructure Support for Regulated Growth Across

### Banks Modernizing Legacy Infrastructure
Modernising issuer and payment stacks with resilience, auditability, and long-term operating control.

### Payment Companies Building Core Systems
Designing processing foundations that scale predictably—without fragility across authorization, clearing, and settlement.

### Enterprises Embedding Payments
Structuring embedded payment infrastructure with clear governance, security controls, and operational accountability.

### Global Organizations Localizing Infrastructure
Advising international teams on deploying compliant, localized infrastructure aligned with regulated market requirements.

## Get Clarity Before You Commit

Connect one-on-one with CARD91’s advisory team to validate critical payment decisions — before regulatory, financial, or execution risk compounds.