Building compliant cross-border payment infrastructure across 150+ countries
A 10-month engagement to design and ship a tokenized financial identity platform with enterprise KYC, AML screening, and payment rails.
Global compliance without global friction
EVEREST is a global identity and payment platform enabling users to hold, send, and receive value across 150+ countries using a tokenized identity system. They needed the infrastructure layer: identity tokenization, KYC/AML pipeline, and compliant payment rails.
Every jurisdiction has different regulatory requirements, KYC thresholds, and permitted payment methods. We built a rules engine that automatically applies the correct compliance logic by user geography — no manual configuration per country.
The identity tokenization layer was particularly novel: once verified, a user's KYC is stored as an encrypted reusable token. Every subsequent transaction references the token without re-screening — reducing friction while maintaining full compliance.
Identity tokenization
Verified identity stored as a reusable encrypted token. Once KYC-verified, every subsequent transaction references the token without additional screening.
Jurisdiction-aware compliance engine
Automatic detection of user geography and application of correct KYC/AML rules, transaction limits, and permitted instruments per country.
Cross-border payment rails
Integration with SWIFT, SEPA, and local payment networks. Real-time FX rates with guaranteed exchange windows to protect users from slippage.
Compliance admin tooling
Internal dashboard for compliance officers: case management, SAR filing, transaction review queues, and automated regulatory reporting.
Compliance architecture first, payment rails second
We spent the first five weeks mapping regulatory requirements across 20 priority jurisdictions before writing a line of application code. Getting the rules engine right was the foundation everything else sat on.
The identity tokenization service used AWS KMS for key management and AWS HSM for hardware-backed cryptographic operations — giving us audit-grade security for the encrypted token store.
By the time we reached the SOC2 readiness audit in month ten, every control was already in place. The audit passed on the first attempt — a direct result of designing for compliance from the beginning rather than retrofitting it at the end.
Compliance architecture (Weeks 1–5)
Mapped regulatory requirements across 20 priority jurisdictions. Designed the rules engine. Selected KYC vendor (Jumio), AML screening (ComplyAdvantage), and payment rails.
Core platform (Months 2–7)
Identity tokenization service, KYC/AML pipeline, payment instruction engine, FX integration, user wallet system, transaction history and audit log.
Compliance tooling and scale (Months 8–10)
SAR generation, regulatory reporting, compliance officer dashboard, penetration testing, SOC2 readiness audit, full 150+ jurisdiction rollout.
A stack built for global compliance at scale
150+ countries live, SOC2 passed first attempt
The jurisdiction-aware rules engine meant EVEREST could expand to new countries without engineering work — just a compliance review and a rules update. The platform went live across 150+ jurisdictions on schedule.
A 94% KYC first-attempt pass rate — well above the industry average of 78% — was driven by careful UX design alongside the technical integration. Users are guided to the right document type for their jurisdiction before they start the verification flow.
The compliance architecture FiveNodes built is the foundation everything else sits on. They understood regulatory nuance that most engineers never encounter. We passed our SOC2 audit on the first attempt — that doesn't happen by accident.
Building global fintech infrastructure?
We've engineered compliant payment and identity platforms across 150+ jurisdictions. Tell us what you're building — we respond the same day.