If you’re a fintech provider connecting to community banks and credit unions, you’ve probably already tried the obvious options. VPN was a nightmare at scale. MPLS was expensive and slow to deploy. And SD-WAN as a service seemed like the logical next step — until you actually tried to use it for FI connectivity.
Here’s the problem: SD-WAN wasn’t built for what you’re doing.
What SD-WAN as a Service Was Actually Designed For
SD-WAN service providers built their platforms for enterprise branch office connectivity — one IT team, one security policy, both sides of the connection under the same roof. The whole model assumes you control the network on both ends.
That assumption breaks immediately when you’re connecting your cloud application to a core banking system inside a community bank with two IT staff and a Cisco router from 2015.
Why SD-WAN Managed Service Fails Fintech-to-FI Connectivity
SD-WAN managed service providers optimize for throughput, QoS, and traffic routing across your own infrastructure. They don’t account for the realities of FI connectivity.
You Don’t Control the Other End
FI environments vary wildly — different hardware, different firewall configurations, different core banking providers, different levels of IT support onsite. SD-WAN deployments that assume technical expertise at the FI side create deployment delays and ongoing support friction that compounds with every new customer.
Compliance Spans Both Organizations
FFIEC and PCI-DSS requirements don’t stop at your firewall. Every connection must be logged, monitored, and auditable across both organizations. Most SD-WAN managed service providers weren’t built with that in mind.
Patching at Scale Becomes a Nightmare
With SD-WAN, security updates have to be coordinated and applied connection by connection. Across hundreds of FIs with different IT teams, that’s not a process — it’s a full-time job.
Cost Scales Badly
Hardware costs, manual management overhead, and support complexity compound as your FI connection count grows. Every dollar spent managing connectivity is a dollar not spent on product.
Why This Gets Worse the More You Grow
One or two FI connections with WAN as a service is manageable. Fifty starts to hurt. At two hundred, you’re spending more time managing connectivity than building product.
The challenge isn’t just technical — it’s structural. The SD-WAN model was never designed for inter-organizational connectivity at this scale. Every new FI is a different environment, a different firewall config, a different IT contact who may or may not respond to your ticket.
What AI-Managed NaaS Does Differently
Trustgrid was built specifically for fintech-to-FI connectivity — not retrofitted from a branch networking product. The core design assumption is that you don’t control the other end of the connection. Everything is built around that reality.
Software-Only Deployment
No hardware to ship, rack, or manage at the FI. Trustgrid runs as a software agent that connects outbound — no inbound firewall rules required on the FI side. New FI connections go live in one day without requiring network expertise at the bank or credit union.
Simultaneous Patching Across All Connections
Security updates push across all FI connections at once from a single portal — no coordination with individual IT teams required. No chasing down IT contacts. No staggered rollouts.
Zero Trust Built In
Certificate-based authentication, role-based access controls, and full audit logging on every connection. SOC 2 Type II certified — compliance is core to the platform, not an add-on.
Built for Variable Environments
Overlapping subnets, NAT traversal, and mixed infrastructure are handled automatically — not manually configured per FI. The platform accounts for the variability of FI environments so your team doesn’t have to.
SD-WAN Is Adjacent. Trustgrid Is Built for This.
SD-WAN as a service solves branch office networking. If that’s your problem, it’s a solid choice. But if you’re scaling connectivity to dozens or hundreds of financial institutions you don’t control — it’s the wrong tool, and the friction compounds with every new deployment.
Trustgrid is trusted by 2,000+ financial institutions across the US because it was built for exactly this problem from day one.
See how fintech providers use Trustgrid to scale FI connectivity →
Chief Technology Officer
Steven Stites is the CTO and Co-Founder of Trustgrid, where he leads the vision and engineering teams behind the company’s innovative platform for secure networking and edge computing solutions. With over 20 years of expertise in network security, distributed computing, and cloud infrastructure, Steven brings deep industry experience to establishing Trustgrid as a trusted provider for secure, scalable application connectivity across FinTech, HealthTech, SaaS, and enterprise environments.
Leadership at Trustgrid
As CTO and Co-Founder, Steven drives the technical strategy, product development, and architectural direction at Trustgrid. He focuses on creating solutions that bridge modern hybrid ecosystems, empowering SaaS and cloud application providers to connect securely to on-premise resources with maximum reliability and performance. Steven’s guidance is central to Trustgrid’s integration of SD-WAN, Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA), and edge computing into a unified platform, simplifying deployment, elevating data security, and supporting enterprise-grade operational scale .
Professional background
Before founding Trustgrid in 2017, Steven held senior technical leadership roles at Cisco, where he served as Senior Technical Leader for IoT Cloud and Cloud Web Security. At Cisco, he architected and led customer engagement for major SaaS security products, designing enterprise-scale networking and security solutions and overseeing technical vetting for large-scale technology acquisitions. Earlier in his career, Steven spent over a decade at IBM as a technical lead, driving development for network monitoring and distributed application performance products, and began as a software engineer researching sonar and signal processing at Applied Research Labs. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin .
Building the Future of Connectivity
Steven’s vision at Trustgrid centers on advancing secure, cloud-like connectivity across modern digital environments, ensuring frictionless integration between public cloud, data center, and on-premise resources. His background in high-performance network design and distributed security shapes Trustgrid’s commitment to eliminating complexity in deploying, monitoring, and supporting thousands of application connections. He is also an inventor, with patents for secure network technologies and is recognized as a strategic leader with a rare blend of deep technical expertise and business insight .
About Steven Stites
Steven is a passionate technology executive and product architect based in Austin, Texas. His approach emphasizes pragmatic problem-solving, strong team leadership, and client advocacy, helping organizations leverage networking and security innovations to enable secure, scalable applications. He is highly regarded for his ability to clarify complex technical challenges, mentor teams, and deliver solutions that balance technical excellence with cost efficiency. Steven is deeply interested in machine learning, cloud security, and agile product development.
Connect with Steven
https://www.linkedin.com/in/srstites/
Or
Contact him at www.trustgrid.io