From runaway bills to outdated tech stacks, here are the most common traps we see here at Kinetic Skunk. Read on to see how the smartest fintechs are flipping the script on the 5 Cloud Mistakes Holding Fintechs Back.
At Kinetic Skunk, we spend a lot of time inside the cloud stacks of South Africa’s fastest-growing fintechs. And while each business has its own flavour, a few cloud mistakes show up again and again. The good news? The 5 Cloud Mistakes Holding Fintechs Back are all fixable. If you know what to look for.
Mistake 1: Thinking You’re Too Small to Be a Target
Security isn’t something you “grow into.” In fact, smaller fintechs are often more vulnerable. There’s less oversight, there are fewer guardrails, and they make more assumptions about their own invisibility. We’ve seen far too many startups delay security planning until it’s too late, only to get sideswiped by breach risks or a last-minute POPIA panic.
Skunk Tip: Build security into your architecture from day one. Use tools like AWS IAM and Security Hub, encrypt your data at rest and in transit, and audit your access policies quarterly. If you’re not sure where to start, get a partner who’s fluent in both compliance and cloud.
Kinetic Truth Bomb: Don’t wait for FSCA or your customers to flag your gaps. Fix them before they’re public.
Mistake 2: Letting Cloud Costs Spiral Quietly
Cloud billing is a sneaky beast. One month it’s chill, the next it’s devouring your runway. A few zombie instances here, some monster-sized compute there, and boom… you’re staring down a scary invoice. Sub-optimal, to say the least.
Skunk Tip: Set budget alerts, enforce auto-scaling, and tag everything. (And we mean everything!) Automation is your budget’s best mate, so lean into tools like AWS Budgets and Cost Explorer. And don’t assume your devs are watching the meter. They’re building; you should be optimising.
Kinetic Truth Bomb: If your cloud bill surprises you, it means you’re not looking in the right places.
Mistake 3: Trying to Scale on Legacy Infrastructure
We get it. That system you built three years ago got you here. But if it’s now dragging performance or integration speed, it’s time to modernise. “Lift and shift” sounds fast, but all it does is move the mess, or temporarily sweep it under the carpet.
Skunk Tip: Don’t just port. Rethink (with fresh eyes and fewer assumptions). Containerise (where it makes sense). Explore (serverless for bursty workloads). And always ask, “Is this solving today’s problem, or just repeating yesterday’s logic?”
Kinetic Truth Bomb: Running a fintech on legacy tech is like trying to win a race with a flip phone and duct tape. We’ve seen it. It’s not pretty.
Mistake 4: Treating Disaster Recovery Like a Checkbox
You have backups. Great. But do you actually know how long it’ll take to get back online? Can your team restore a failed node without Slack going into meltdown?
Skunk Tip: A proper DR strategy includes real RTO and RPO metrics, not just vibes. Test your failovers. Simulate outages. Build confidence into your system before it’s under pressure.
Kinetic Truth Bomb: Plan B should not be “panic and pray.” It should be “switch and stabilise.”
Mistake 5: Letting Multi-Cloud Become Multi-Mess
Multi-cloud can be powerful… until it turns into a digital spiderweb. We’ve worked with clients who had six billing accounts and no idea where half their workloads lived. That’s not strategy. That’s entropy.
Skunk Tip: Only go multi-cloud if there’s a clear business reason. Otherwise, consolidate and simplify. If you’re juggling dashboards, centralise your monitoring and governance before it becomes unmanageable.
Kinetic Truth Bomb: If no one knows who owns what in your stack, you’re already in trouble.
Bottom line
Don’t see your mistakes as failures or let the 5 Cloud Mistakes Holding Fintechs Back affect you. They’re symptoms of a system under pressure. At KineticSkunk, we help fintechs turn cloud chaos into competitive edge. Whether you’re scaling fast or cleaning up legacy debt, we’ve got your back.
Let’s fix the stack, so you can get back to building the future.Take a breath. Then take the next step.
