The first thing I ask a fintech founder is the least exciting question: does the business make money? Every year many fintechs launch and many shut down. In 2026 the money is chasing AI features, but I still see the opportunity in steady, sustainable profit. Real profit, not inflated numbers, because profit is what pays for the runway.
One specific problem
Fintech touches almost everything people do with money, so I look for founders who commit to a single problem, ideally one rooted in a particular culture. One founder I admire built an app that lets Indonesian Hajj travellers pay through the Saudi payment system instead of carrying large amounts of cash. It is simple, it is specific, and it makes money.
Active users, not sign-ups
I look at how many users actively transact, not how many signed up. A million users can hide a thousand who use the app every day. Faked activity rarely survives six months to a year, and over that window you can check what a founder tells you against reality.
Compliance
Compliance is where many fintechs lose their funding. My lens is anti-money laundering: at Mulai we build AML and fraud prevention tools for banks and fintechs across Southeast Asia, and I worked in business development at Tookitaki and Flagright before that. I once backed out of a small check to another fintech at the last minute, after learning that one of its executives was involved in online gambling, which is illegal in Indonesia.
Payments in real life
I ask founders how they handle unreliable infrastructure. In Indonesia, the notification that confirms a BI Fast transfer arrives only around 70% of the time, based on what I see through the API. A founder who offers payments through it should know exactly how a transfer is confirmed or failed without losing money.
The same applies to AI-built features. A QR payment built quickly with AI can charge a customer twice when they tap twice. Payments have known guardrails for this, such as idempotency keys, but someone needs to know the flow well enough to place them correctly.
Consistency and honesty
Banks buy slowly. Their licensing cycles can run three years, so the founders who win are the ones still doing the same thing when the bank comes back. And I welcome founders who tell me about the product that failed or the pivot that cost them a year. Failure is a receipt for success, and I would rather hear it from you.
Read the full article
This is a short version. The full piece, with more on bank partnerships, hackathons and an FAQ, is on Byvi: What I Check Before Funding a Fintech Startup.