Engineering-Led PCI DSS & SOC 2 for FinTechs
Scope reduction, control implementation, and audit-ready evidence — built into how your team already works. Not a separate “compliance project” that distracts engineers for two quarters.
When to call us
Enterprise customer is asking for SOC 2
A deal is gated on a SOC 2 report and you do not have one. You need a credible Type I in 8–12 weeks and a Type II within the year — without breaking your roadmap.
PCI DSS 4.0 is hitting
PCI DSS 4.0 enforcement is here and your scope is broader than you wish. You need scope reduction, not just better documentation of the wide scope you have.
Auditor keeps flagging the same controls
Year after year, the same control gaps come back. You need someone who can fix them at the engineering layer, not just write better policies around the gaps.
BSA/AML program is misaligned
Your KYC, monitoring, and SAR filing live in three different tools with manual handoffs. Sponsor bank and regulators want a coherent program, not a patchwork.
What you actually get
- PCI DSS scope analysis with concrete recommendations to reduce scope (tokenization boundaries, network segmentation, P2PE evaluation)
- SOC 2 readiness assessment against the Trust Services Criteria, with prioritized engineering and operational fixes
- Control implementation: access management, change management, monitoring, incident response — wired into how your team actually works
- Evidence collection automation — pulling artifacts from your existing systems instead of asking engineers to screenshot things quarterly
- BSA/AML program coherence: KYC/KYB, transaction monitoring, OFAC screening, SAR workflow, all reconciled with sponsor-bank expectations
- Auditor-ready documentation that does not require translation between engineering reality and audit fiction
Named proof
Netspend
Austin, TXShipped a credit-building feature on a regulated mobile banking platform end-to-end in 3.5 months — including the compliance posture required for a financial services product.
HelloHive
New York, NYModernized legacy monolith with proper access controls, audit logging, and the security architecture that survives both growth and external review.
How we work
30-min discovery call
What audit pressure you are under, what your current compliance posture is, and where the deals or regulators are pushing. Honest read on what the realistic timeline looks like.
Readiness assessment
2–4 weeks. We map current state against PCI DSS or SOC 2 controls, identify the engineering and operational gaps, and produce a written remediation plan with sequencing.
Embedded remediation
We pair with your engineers on the highest-impact control implementations, write the documentation auditors actually accept, and stay through the audit cycle.
Frequently asked
How long does SOC 2 readiness take?
Type I: 8–14 weeks from kickoff if you have a reasonable starting posture. Type II: requires 6 months of evidence, so 8–10 months total from a clean start. We sequence the work so a Type I is achievable on the shorter timeline if a deal depends on it.
What changed with PCI DSS 4.0 — and what should we actually do?
PCI DSS 4.0 (mandatory effective March 2025) introduces customized approaches, stricter MFA requirements, mandatory automated vulnerability scanning, and tighter rules on hosting, browser scripts, and authenticated scanning. The high-leverage move is usually scope reduction via tokenization or P2PE — not trying to satisfy 4.0 across the wider scope you have today.
Do you write our policies?
We will write the technical and engineering-adjacent policies (access management, change management, vulnerability management, incident response). Legal-heavy policies (privacy, employment) usually live with your counsel. We make sure what auditors read matches what your engineers actually do.
Can you bring a SOC 2 auditor?
We have working relationships with several. We do not collect referral fees and pick based on fit — including price, sector experience, and how reasonable they are during evidence review. The auditor relationship matters more than most teams realize.
What about ISO 27001, HIPAA, and other frameworks?
We work primarily on PCI DSS and SOC 2 because that is what most US/Canadian FinTechs need. ISO 27001 has significant overlap with SOC 2 and we can extend if you need both. HIPAA only when there is a finance + healthcare overlap (which is increasingly common).
Ready to talk?
30 minutes, free, no pitch. We will tell you honestly what timeline is achievable for your situation.