Financial technology
Penetration Testing for Fintech Companies
Fintech companies keep money, identity data, and transaction history behind a login, so attackers and partner questionnaires both arrive early. Invadel tests payment flows, lending platforms, APIs, and cloud environments at a fixed price, with a free retest and audit-ready reporting.
The stakes
Why fintech gets tested differently
Attackers target fintech for the same reason customers do: the money moves. Account takeover through weak password reset flows and authorization flaws that expose one customer’s transactions to another lead the list. Business logic abuse in transfers, limits, and promotions follows close behind. Behind the application sits the API layer, and behind that the cloud account holding the keys to both.
The pressure comes from several directions at once. A sponsor bank or banking-as-a-service partner wants a recent third-party test before it opens an account program. PCI DSS Requirement 11.4 applies wherever card data is handled. NYDFS-licensed lenders and money transmitters owe annual penetration testing under 23 NYCRR 500. The GLBA Safeguards Rule applies to financial institutions, and SOC 2 auditors expect a penetration test in the evidence set.
A generic test treats a lending platform like any other web application. It checks the OWASP list and moves on. Fintech findings live in the workflow. A loan decision that can be replayed, a limit that resets under a race condition, a payment processor webhook that nobody validates. Testers need to understand how money moves through your product before they can find where it leaks.
What we test
The systems attackers go after first
Customer web and mobile apps
Onboarding, KYC upload, account dashboards, and transfer flows, tested across every role for account takeover, authorization gaps, and logic abuse in the money movement itself.
Payment and ledger APIs
The REST and GraphQL endpoints behind the app and partner integrations, tested for broken object authorization, mass assignment, and unthrottled transaction endpoints.
Third-party integrations
Payment processor webhooks, open banking connectors, KYC vendors, and card issuer callbacks, tested for signature validation, replay, and trust placed in upstream responses.
Cloud infrastructure
The AWS, Azure, or GCP accounts holding ledgers and secrets, tested for IAM escalation paths, exposed storage, and the blast radius of one leaked key.
Back-office and admin tools
Internal consoles for fraud review, manual adjustments, and customer support, where a single overprivileged role can move funds or export the customer base.
Fraud and risk models
Scoring and decisioning models behind underwriting and transaction monitoring, tested for evasion, extraction, and manipulation through the features they depend on.
Compliance
The frameworks that usually apply
- PCI DSS
Requirement 11.4 penetration testing of the cardholder data environment, including payment pages and the APIs that carry card data.
- NYDFS 23 NYCRR 500
The annual internal and external testing that covered lenders, money transmitters, and virtual currency businesses owe under §500.5.
- SOC 2
The penetration test auditors and bank partners expect as evidence for the Security criteria, with findings mapped to controls.
Services
What fintech teams usually buy
- From $5,200
Web Application Penetration Testing
Manual testing of your web app across the OWASP Top 10, business logic, and every user role, from $5,200.
- From $4,000
API Penetration Testing Services
REST, GraphQL, and SOAP testing for broken authorization, token flaws, and data exposure, from $4,000.
- From $6,800
Cloud Penetration Testing
Configuration and exploitation testing across AWS, Azure, and GCP, from $6,800.
- From $6,000
Mobile Application Penetration Testing
iOS and Android testing against the OWASP MASVS: storage, transport, runtime, and the API behind the app, from $6,000.
- From $4,500
AI & LLM Penetration Testing
LLM and AI system testing: prompt injection, jailbreaks, data leakage, and unsafe tool use, from $4,500.
How it runs
Typical engagements
Illustrative scopes for this industry, written to show what a test covers and what you walk away with. They are not client stories; our anonymized engagements are on the case studies page.
Typical engagement
Series B lending platform before a sponsor bank review
A Series B lending platform preparing for a sponsor bank’s diligence review needs a third-party test of its borrower portal, underwriting API, and AWS environment. We test every role from applicant to loan officer and chain an authorization flaw into access to other borrowers’ documents. An overprivileged IAM role is traced to the ledger database. The platform fixes the findings, we retest at no cost, and the attestation letter goes into the bank’s diligence package.
Typical engagement
Payments startup entering PCI DSS scope
A payments startup that has begun storing card data on its own infrastructure needs Requirement 11.4 evidence for its first assessment. We scope the cardholder data environment with the team and test the checkout flow and tokenization API at the application layer. External and internal testing then runs against the segment that holds card data. The QSA receives a report mapped to the requirement, segmentation evidence, and retest results showing findings closed.
Typical engagement
Licensed money transmitter ahead of its annual certification
A money transmitter licensed by the Department of Financial Services needs its §500.5 testing done before the annual certification of compliance. We run the external and internal tests the regulation requires, scoped to the systems holding nonpublic information, and test the customer app and its API alongside them. The compliance officer receives an examiner-ready report, tester qualifications, and remediation tracking that supports the certification the CISO signs.
FAQ
What fintech buyers ask
01Which penetration test does a fintech company usually need first?
Almost always the customer-facing application and the API behind it, because that is where the money moves and where bank partners look first. Cloud testing follows when the environment holds ledgers, keys, or customer records. Our fintech penetration testing guide walks through how to scope each one.
02Does NYDFS 23 NYCRR 500 apply to us?
If you hold a DFS license, registration, or authorization, such as a lending license, a money transmitter license, or a BitLicense, you are a covered entity. Section 500.5 then requires annual penetration testing from inside and outside your information systems. If the license sits with a partner bank instead, the bank’s own obligations usually reach you through the partnership agreement.
03Our bank partner asked for a penetration test. What do they expect to see?
A dated report from an independent firm and a scope that covers the product they are sponsoring. Findings rated by severity, and evidence that the serious ones were fixed. We deliver an executive summary for the partnership team and a technical report for your engineers. The attestation letter summarizes scope and outcome without exposing the details.
04How much does a fintech penetration test cost?
Web application testing starts at $5,200, API testing at $4,000, and cloud testing at $6,800. Each price is fixed in writing before work starts and includes a free retest of remediated findings. Most fintech engagements combine two of the three, and we quote one number in writing from your scope details.
05Can you test without touching production money movement?
Yes. We test in staging or sandbox environments wherever they exist, using test accounts and processor sandboxes. When production is the only option we agree written rules of engagement: no real transfers, agreed test accounts, defined windows, and immediate escalation of anything critical. Fixed scope means your team knows exactly what is being tested and when.
Get a fixed price for your fintech scope
Tell us what needs testing. You get a written fixed price within one business day, with the compliance mapping your auditors and customers expect.
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