Building Fintech in the Age of AI
Bouncer, Sentinel, Crypto Teller, and SkyMind: how two co-founders run a U.S.-to-Cuba payments company on their own AI.
Tim Parsa · Co-Founder & CCO, QvaPay · 4 October 2026 · 4 min read Subscribe
When I built the compliance programs at Uphold and Airtm, every function was a vendor: one for identity, one for screening, one for monitoring, one for crypto, and a room of analysts reconciling what each saw. With AI, QvaPay builds its own.
Four tools, one ledger
| Tool | What it does | Who decides |
|---|---|---|
| Sentinel | Screens every party and address against the SDN List, the Cuba Restricted List, prohibited officials and Party members, and the UN, EU, and UK lists, at onboarding, on every payment, and after every list update. Public demo at sdn.qvapay.com. | A possible match is held for our compliance officer; a confirmed one is blocked and reported to OFAC. |
| Bouncer | Sweeps the whole ledger every day for structuring, velocity, funnels, pass-through, and counterparty spread, and checks each account against its declared purpose. | Restricts on a fail and writes the case; the compliance officer reviews and decides on any report. |
| Crypto Teller | Our in-house crypto processor: a fresh address and the on-chain hash on every deposit, and no withdrawal broadcast until Sentinel clears the destination. | USDC only, from and to screened wallets. |
| SkyMind | In final development: completes assisted purchases by card, assisted vendor payments by bank, and assisted withdrawals on the peer market. | Vendor payments are released by the compliance officer against documents. |
Why build instead of buy
- One record. Every check writes to the same ledger, so an examiner sees one story, not four vendors’ exports.
- Cuba-specific. No vendor ships Cuban name variants, Party-member definitions, or the 30 September 2026 rules out of the box. We tune for them every week.
- Cost. A compliance program priced for a bank doesn’t fit a market where the average remittance is a few hundred dollars.
At Airtm we spent a fortune stitching vendors together. Erich builds the way Cubans have always built: with what’s at hand, and better. In the age of AI, what’s at hand is enough to build the whole stack.
U.S. technology, built by Cuban talent, running a U.S.-registered, sanctions-screened company. That’s Techno-Cubanism in one stack.
SkyMind completes the assisted flows and Crypto Teller settles crypto; AI makes each one fast and screened.
| Flow | How we grow it | U.S. tech meets Cuban talent |
|---|---|---|
| Assisted purchases U.S. payer: §515.533 with SCP · from a Cuban balance: pending with OFAC | SkyMind completes card purchases on the customer’s behalf; more U.S. merchants, more categories. | Cuban buyers get U.S. goods and software without a card of their own. |
| Assisted vendor payments QvaPay's reading of §515.533/§515.421 · pending with OFAC | SkyMind will pay U.S. exporters by wire from QvaPay's U.S. bank; a Florida logistics hub shortens delivery. | U.S. exporters sell solar panels, tools, and machines to Cuban private businesses. |
| Assisted withdrawals Pending with OFAC · peer pays from own funds | SkyMind routes each withdrawal to a screened peer who pays from their own funds. | Dollars become pesos in hand from a peer's own funds; QvaPay never pays into a Cuban bank. |
| Crypto funding and withdrawals Own funds, screened addresses · withdrawals by persons in Cuba: pending with OFAC | USDC from and to screened wallets, settled by Crypto Teller. | Cubans hold dollars on a phone, the way the rest of the internet does. |
The potential. Remittances into Cuba run an estimated $1.1–2B a year (2024; estimates vary). At the Dominican Republic’s rate per person, Cuba would receive about $9.8B, five to nine times today. That is the market QvaPay is built to serve.
| Market | Cuba today | Cuba at the Dominican Republic’s rate per person |
|---|---|---|
| Remittances received | $1.1–2B 2024 est., estimates vary | $9.8B DR total $11.9B (2025) |
A scenario, not a forecast. The Dominican Republic received $11.9B in remittances in 2025 across 11.4 million people, about $1,040 a person; at that rate Cuba’s 9.43 million people would receive about $9.8B a year, five to nine times today. Method and sources.
Not one U.S. bank onboarded a Cuban entrepreneur under the 2024 rule, because OFAC never set a due-diligence standard. Legal authorization has little value if intermediaries won’t act on it. On cubanew.com ↗
Sources
- QvaPay Sentinel, public screening demo ↗
- QvaPay, AML/BSA program and transparency page ↗
- eCFR, 31 CFR part 1022, rules for money services businesses ↗
- FinCEN, MSB registrant search ↗
- OFAC, Sanctions List Search ↗
- U.S. Department of State, Cuba Restricted List ↗
- eCFR, 31 CFR § 515.337 ↗
- eCFR, 31 CFR § 515.338 ↗
- Periódico Cubano, Cuba’s private sector imported nearly $1.2 billion in the first half of 2025 ↗
If this was useful, pass it to someone building in Cuba.