Designing cloud infrastructure is a business decision. Especially in financial services, where every new client, currency or compliance rule introduces more complexity. If your cloud setup can’t adapt, your business won't either.
At Trumia, cloud infrastructure underpins everything, from multi-currency payment flows to AML-compliant onboarding. The question is no longer whether to go cloud-first, but how to do it in a way that scales without spiraling in cost, risk, or downtime.
That means thinking modularly, designing for real-time visibility, and embedding security from days zero. This article walks through how we approach cloud architecture and the principles we believe are non-negotiable if you want to build infrastructure that supports the business, not just the technology side.
Scalability doesn’t automatically mean “handling more traffic”. Foundationally, it means your systems can adapt when the business changes via new products, new regulations, or new jurisdictions.
That is the point for any infrastructure decision we make. We design with flexibility in mind. Core services should run in containerised environments with clean separation between functions (payments, onboarding, compliance, reporting) so you can scale them independently as needs shift. That is especially important in sectors like iGaming or crypto, where usage patterns are unpredictable and regulatory expectations vary by region.
We never take the same approach to cloud either. For some workflows, public cloud gives us the speed and elasticity we need. For others (especially those tied to sensitive data or local compliance) hybrid or private deployments make more sense.
We also pay close attention to the less glamorous side of scale: operational clarity. If you're scaling and can't see what's happening inside your system (or worse, can't control the cost of it) you're setting yourself up for trouble. That’s why you should treat observability and cost governance as core parts of the architecture.
To sum things up, you need to build what the business needs, not what the cloud provider sells. That way, you can keep it flexible enough to evolve when the business inevitably shifts.
Modularity is needed to maintain control. When you're operating in financial services, where regulations change, partners shift, and clients expect instant service, tightly coupled systems become liabilities. They are harder to test, harder to update, and slow everything down.
We build everything around separation of concerns. Core services (payment routing, AML checks, reconciliation, user management) are split into standalone components. They can be deployed, monitored, and updated independently. That speeds up delivery but, more importantly, reduces the blast radius when something changes.
You should also rely on containerisation and infrastructure as code, so any environment you stand up (dev, staging, production) is consistent by default. CI/CD pipelines can handle deployment, testing, and rollback, so that you keep your runtime environments clean and minimal.
We always try to make changes without introducing new risks. That also means resisting the urge to over-engineer. Serverless has its place, and so does managed services. However, If something locks you into a vendor, or makes it harder to track and control performance at scale, we think twice.
Modularity at its core should be about designing for accountability. For us, that equals to faster client onboarding, isolating issues, quicker and adapting services without needing to rebuild the platform from scratch.
Security doesn’t start at deployment. It starts at design. That’s the only approach that works in a business where a compliance breach equals reputational damage, regulatory scrutiny, and potentially, loss of license.
Security is built into every layer of our infrastructure. Access is controlled through the principle of least privilege. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. All changes (code, config, infrastructure) go through peer review and audit logging.
This is a regulatory necessity. As a licensed EMI operating across high-risk sectors we align our systems with ISO 27001, PCI-DSS, GDPR, and other relevant standards by default. ) our infrastructure is designed so that audits don't feel messy. They’re a matter of queering the right logs, not retrofitting compliance onto something that was never built for it.
We also use monitoring tools that flag suspicious access patterns, misconfigurations or service drift. As containerisation and microservices become standard, you should take into account integrated machine learning-based security tools that baseline “normal” behavior across services and alert on anything that steps outside of it. That’s especially valuable in a modular setup where components can be updated independently.
Compliance doesn't slow us down. It's what allows us to move fast with control. In financial services, that's the only kind of speed that matters.
Uptime is not the only thing that marks the value of a system’s reliability. In reality, when you know fast when something is wrong, and can act on it even faster, is the real testament of its value.
In cloud environments, things break. That’s a given. What matters is whether you can find out through a monitoring dashboard or through a client support ticket. That is the reason why we treat observability as non-negotiable.
Every core service is monitored in real time: availability, latency, error rates, resource usage. Distributed tracing should be used to understand what’s happening inside a flow, whether it’s a delayed outbound payment or a struck compliance check. That gives teams the context they need to fix things fast.
We also rely on automated alerts and self-healing routines. If something fails, we have predefined actions in place. Some systems automatically restart, others redirect traffic, others isolate the issue while altering the right team. Manual intervention is the fallback, not the plan.
This same mindset should be applied to maintenance. Rolling updates, redundancy, and proper failover design should be built in from the start. If an availability zone goes down, services should reroute. Reliability isn’t a final layer you add to a system. It’s a function of design, observability, and response time.
Cloud costs don't spiral because someone made one bad decision. They spiral because no one's watching the small ones. A few unused instances here, over-provision storage there, and suddenly your infrastructure budget looks nothing like what you planned.
That's why, internally, we keep a close eye on usage and regularly adjust. The goal isn't just to save money. It’s to make sure the system stays clean with no waste, no drifting in unwanted directions, and no surprises. This has to happen without affecting reliability or experience.
For anyone managing cloud systems (especially in sectors where uptime is non-negotiable) some practices are better than others:
Cost efficiency is not always about squeezing every last cent. You need to stay in control. If you can’t explain where your cloud budget is going, the system is running your business, instead of you.
There’s a tendency to overcomplicate cloud strategy with very long roadmaps, layered frameworks, and a dozen competing philosophies. Despite that, the fundamentals are pretty straightforward.
If your infrastructure can scale without chaos, stay secure, perform under pressure, and stay cost-aware without constant cleanup, then you’re heading in the right direction. That doesn’t mean keeping everything at a basic level. You just need to be intentional.
Architecture decisions should be tied to business goals. Security should be built in. Monitoring should be proactive and cost control should happen right from the start, not during a quarterly panic.
These are the most important things that make infrastructure reliable, not just in terms of uptime, but in terms of trust. Can the system adapt to new requirements? Can it handle growth without downtime? Can it be audited, secured, explained?
If the answer is yes, then the cloud setup is doing what it’s supposed to do: supporting the business quietly and consistently.
.svg)
Address:
Quad Central, Q3 Level 3, Triq
l-Esportaturi, Zone 1, Central Business District, Birkirkara, CBD 1040, Malta
Email Address:
contactus@trumia.com
.avif)
