Sovereign-Grade Payment Infrastructure
Six-layer microservices architecture built for Central Bank licensing, 10,000+ TPS capacity, and sub-400ms end-to-end latency across Africa.
99.99%
Uptime SLA
+0.01%< 400ms
Avg Latency
-12ms10,000+
TPS Capacity
+2,0003 Regions
Data Centres
+1 plannedSix-Layer Microservices Stack
Each layer is independently scalable, deployable, and auditable. Click any layer to explore its constituent services and technologies.
End-to-End Payment Flow
Watch a payment traverse the entire stack — from customer tap to merchant confirmation in under 400 milliseconds.
Real-Time Transaction Flow
End-to-end payment processing in < 400ms
Eight Layers. One Coherent Stack.
Each layer is independently deployable, horizontally scalable, and communicates via Apache Kafka event streams.
IDENTITY & ACCESS SERVICE
WALLET & LEDGER SERVICE
PAYMENT ROUTING ENGINE
ACCEPTANCE ENGINE
COMPLIANCE ENGINE
RISK & FRAUD ENGINE
REGULATOR DASHBOARD
INTEGRATION SERVICE
Designed for a Billion Transactions
Built to scale from launch to 10 million users without architectural rebuilds.
- 3 pods per service, auto-scaling to 20
- Single AWS region: af-south-1 (Cape Town)
- RDS Multi-AZ with read replica
- 3-node Kafka cluster, 12 partitions per topic
- Redis 3-node cluster
- Multi-region: af-south-1 + eu-west-1
- Database: country-partitioned, read replicas per country
- PgBouncer connection pooling
- Kafka: 6 brokers, 24 partitions
- TimescaleDB for analytics workloads
- Aurora PostgreSQL Global Database
- Active-active multi-region (Africa, EU, Asia)
- Kafka: 12+ brokers, 48 partitions per topic
- ElasticSearch for transaction search
- Cold storage: S3 Parquet via AWS Glue
The Technology Stack
Every choice made for reliability, security, and scale.
BACKEND SERVICES
- Node.js 20 LTS · TypeScript · Fastify 4
- Prisma ORM · Zod validation · Jest testing
- OpenAPI 3.0 specifications
DATA LAYER
- PostgreSQL 16 · Redis 7 · TimescaleDB
- AWS RDS Multi-AZ · PgBouncer
- Flyway migrations
MESSAGE STREAMING
- Apache Kafka · AWS MSK · MirrorMaker 2
- 12 topics · 12–48 partitions · 3x replication
- 7-day hot retention · S3 Glacier cold archive
INFRASTRUCTURE
- AWS EKS (Kubernetes) · Docker · Terraform
- Kong API Gateway · AWS CloudFront · Route 53
- AWS MSK · AWS S3 · AWS KMS · AWS X-Ray
SECURITY
- HashiCorp Vault · AWS KMS · AWS WAF
- Argon2id password hashing · AES-256-GCM
- RS256 JWT signing · TLS 1.3 minimum
- Hardware Security Module (HSM) — Phase 2
Five Security Layers
Every transaction passes through five independent security layers. Each layer has its own scoring engine and can independently block suspicious activity.
Overall Security Score
Composite of all layers
External Integrations
Direct API connections to banks, mobile money operators, card networks, and identity providers across Africa.
Banking
- Stanbic Bank
- Access Bank
- Ecobank
- Standard Bank
- Zenith Bank
Mobile Money
- MTN MoMo
- Vodafone Cash
- Airtel Money
- M-Pesa
- Orange Money
Card Networks
- Visa
- Mastercard
- Verve
- UnionPay
Identity
- Smile Identity
- Onfido
- Ghana Card (NIA)
- NIN (Nigeria)
Technology Stack
Purpose-built with modern, battle-tested technologies chosen for performance, security, and regulatory compliance.
Backend
Go
Core services, ledger, wallet
Node.js
API gateway, orchestration
Python
ML models, data pipelines
Rust
Cryptographic operations
Data
PostgreSQL 16
Primary relational database
Redis Cluster
Caching & session store
Apache Kafka
Event streaming platform
TimescaleDB
Time-series analytics
Infrastructure
AWS (EKS)
Primary cloud provider
Kubernetes
Container orchestration
Terraform
Infrastructure as code
ArgoCD
GitOps deployment
Security
HashiCorp Vault
Secrets management
AWS HSM
Hardware key management
Falco
Runtime security monitoring
Snyk
Dependency vulnerability scanning
Architecture Principles
Event-Driven
Asynchronous event sourcing ensures every state change is captured, auditable, and replayable for regulatory compliance.
Zero Trust
Every service authenticates every request. No implicit trust between layers — even internal services use mTLS.
Horizontal Scaling
Each microservice scales independently based on load. Auto-scaling policies handle traffic spikes automatically.
CQRS + Event Sourcing
Command and query separation with immutable event logs. Perfect audit trail for Central Bank inspections.
Multi-Region
Active-active deployment across 3 AWS regions. Data residency compliance per jurisdiction with geo-routing.
Chaos Engineering
Regular failure injection tests ensure the system degrades gracefully. 99.99% uptime SLA backed by architecture.
Explore Detailed Documentation
Dive deeper into specific areas of the AuraTap infrastructure.
Treasury & Float Management
Safeguarding accounts, float positions, and reconciliation
Settlement Banks
Partner bank network, FX exposure, and settlement flows
Ledger Architecture
Double-entry ledger, payment flows, and regulatory alignment
Licensing Strategy
EMI/PSP licensing roadmap across 8 jurisdictions
Cross-Border Framework
Corridor rules, AML/CTF compliance, and FX models
Security & Compliance
PCI DSS, encryption, threat monitoring, and audit trails
Ready to Build on AuraTap?
Request detailed technical documentation or schedule a call with our engineering team to discuss integration.