In the digital era, payment platforms are the backbone of banking and fintech innovation. They must be secure, resilient, compliant, and capable of processing massive transaction volumes with near-zero latency. Yet, building and modernizing these platforms is a high-stakes, high-complexity challenge—one where traditional development approaches often fall short. Sapient Slingshot, Publicis Sapient’s proprietary AI-powered software development platform, is purpose-built to transform how financial institutions deliver next-generation payment solutions.
Payment platforms are unlike any other enterprise application. They must:
Meeting these requirements demands a development approach that is both rigorous and agile—one that can automate complexity without sacrificing control or compliance.
Sapient Slingshot is engineered to address the full spectrum of payment platform challenges, leveraging AI to automate, accelerate, and de-risk every stage of the software development lifecycle (SDLC). Here’s how it delivers transformative value:
The journey begins by defining the functional and non-functional requirements of the payment platform. Slingshot’s Backlog AI instantly generates a comprehensive backlog tailored to the payments domain, including payment initiation services, orchestration workflows, settlement modules, and compliance features. This backlog is informed by industry best practices and regulatory standards, ensuring nothing critical is overlooked. Teams can further refine epics and user stories, adjusting acceptance criteria to match specific business and compliance needs.
Once requirements are set, Slingshot’s AI generates detailed architecture diagrams and technical specifications. The resulting design is scalable, compliant with international banking standards, and modular for easy integration and future enhancements. Microservices for payment initiation, orchestration, and settlement are defined with clear API boundaries and data flows—supporting both agility and resilience.
Slingshot integrates directly with JIRA and other project management platforms, enabling teams to retrieve and update story details, sync acceptance criteria, and maintain traceability from requirements through to deployment. This integration streamlines project management, ensuring every requirement is tracked, tested, and delivered.
With architecture and APIs defined, Slingshot’s code generation engine creates production-ready microservices for each core payment function. The generated code is clean, modular, and aligned with enterprise standards—ready for integration with existing systems and third-party providers. Automated documentation and test cases accompany the code, dramatically reducing manual effort and accelerating time-to-market.
Security is non-negotiable in payments. Slingshot’s security prompts automatically embed best practices for authentication, authorization, data encryption, and secure API design. Automated regulatory checks are built into the workflow, validating that the platform meets all relevant standards before deployment. This includes:
Before going live, Slingshot runs a suite of automated tests covering functional correctness, performance, security vulnerabilities, and compliance. Behavior-driven development (BDD) feature files and step definitions are generated from JIRA acceptance criteria, ensuring that testing is both comprehensive and aligned with business goals. Dynamic reports provide clear visibility into test results and any issues that need resolution.
Once validated, the platform can be deployed to cloud or on-premise environments. Slingshot’s automation extends to infrastructure setup, CI/CD pipelines, and ongoing monitoring, supporting continuous delivery and rapid iteration as regulations or business needs evolve.
Financial services organizations face some of the world’s most stringent regulatory and security requirements. Sapient Slingshot is designed with these realities in mind:
Organizations leveraging Sapient Slingshot have achieved:
These are not theoretical numbers—they reflect real outcomes in financial services, where compliance and security are paramount.
With decades of experience in financial services and a proven track record with 85% of the world’s top banks, Publicis Sapient brings together deep domain expertise, advanced AI, and a robust code library to deliver payment platforms that are future-ready. Sapient Slingshot is not just a tool—it’s a transformation accelerator, empowering your teams to innovate with confidence and deliver the payment experiences your customers demand.
Ready to see how Sapient Slingshot can transform your payment platform development? Connect with our experts for a live demo and discover what’s possible when AI meets financial services engineering.