Scale Computing CTO Brett Stewart on Why Continuous Compliance Is the Future of FinTech

Scale Computing’s SC//AcuVigil™ Managed Network Solutions was named Best Compliance Solution in the 2026 Tech Ascension FinTech Awards, and was recognized for its ability to help financial and retail organizations strengthen compliance, improve network visibility, and reduce operational risk across distributed environments.

We sat down with Brett Stewart, Chief Technology Officer at Scale Computing, to discuss the growing challenges surrounding continuous compliance, the role of AI and edge computing, and how SC//AcuVigil helps organizations move from reactive reporting to proactive operational assurance. Scale Computing Inc.'s SC//AcuVigil™ Managed Network Solutions was recently recognized as Best Compliance Solution for FinTech by the Tech Ascension Awards. What does this recognition mean to your team and the customers you serve?

Being named as Best Compliance Solution is tremendously validating, both for us as a company and for our customers. The convergence of an increasing number of regulatory requirements, escalating security risks posed by AI, and network complexity means enterprises can’t run static compliance programs based on a checklist. Rather, financial systems need to be continuously monitored and embedded in day-to-day operations — a process made simple thanks to SC//AcuVigil™ managed network solutions. For our customers, this recognition reinforces that the SC//AcuVigil platform delivers on what they need most, reducing the burden of compliance without compromising agility or control.

Financial and retail institutions are facing an increasingly complex regulatory landscape while managing distributed infrastructure and networks. What are some of the biggest compliance challenges you're seeing in the market today? 

Even as regulatory expectations and infrastructure complexity accelerate with the increasing adoption of AI, organizations still need to deliver a customer-first experience to remain competitive. Unfortunately, many companies are still relying on legacy tools and systems, which only compound the complexity. Fragmented systems lead to a lack of visibility, and as organizations scale to open new sites, process sensitive data, deploy IoT technologies, or layer on digital services, ensuring reliability, maintaining compliance, and defending against evolving threats requires greater visibility, automation, and expertise than most businesses can support internally. Balancing operational efficiency and agility with a highly distributed footprint while remaining compliant will continue to be a challenge for enterprises.

Compliance is often viewed as a reporting exercise, but organizations are increasingly looking for continuous visibility and risk reduction. How does the SC//AcuVigil solution help customers move from reactive compliance to proactive operational assurance?

Traditional IT models require extensive local staff and multiple vendors to maintain connectivity, security, monitoring, and compliance, while legacy setups frequently involve siloed ISPs or patchwork networks that can fail silently, leaving organizations exposed. SC//AcuVigil managed network solutions dramatically reduce downtime and keep transactions flowing even if primary links fail, thanks to a single-pane-of-glass view that shows the health of every network element, meaning IT teams can proactively spot and resolve issues and focus on higher-value IT initiatives that move the organization forward. Through the App Catalog, monitoring capabilities are extended beyond the network layer to the very applications that power an organization’s operations, while SC//AcuLock^TM isolation quarantines any combination of locations before malware can spread laterally.

What sets SC//AcuVigil managed network solutions apart from other compliance and network monitoring solutions available to fintech organizations? 

SC//AcuVigil managed network solutions is the only edge network platform backed by a full PCI DSS Attestation of Compliance across all products and services. It doesn’t just demonstrate PCI compliance—it operates under it, indicating a company has undergone a thorough security assessment and adheres to industry standards for protecting cardholder data. It goes beyond monitoring to safeguard organizations’ distributed environments, providing end-to-end visibility, secure connectivity, and PCI-ready compliance tools that simplify and streamline compliance activity. Organizations can securely manage and troubleshoot equipment remotely through SC//AcuLink™ Remote Access Service, which provides a PCI-compliant, high-speed connection for remote support and updates, thereby reducing technician travel, speeding problem resolution, and ensuring systems like point-of-sale terminals, ATGs, and DVRs stay up and running while maintaining strict compliance standards.

As financial institutions continue to adopt cloud, edge computing, AI, and other emerging technologies, how do you see compliance requirements evolving, and how are SC//AcuVigil managed network solutions positioned to support those changes? 

We will continue to see more regulations centered on continuous and evidence-based compliance, in which regulators will expect companies to demonstrate real-time logging and continuous controls monitoring rather than point-in-time attestations. As agentic AI use cases make further inroads into banking and other financial services, there will be an even larger push to demonstrate that these agents are safe, secure, and reliable, and that the supply chain hasn’t been compromised. The companies that succeed will be those that leverage solutions such as the SC//AcuVigil platform, which maximizes ROI by combining self-service flexibility with white-glove, around-the-clock NOC support. This allows users to maintain control without any additional operational burden: They can configure, monitor, and troubleshoot their network independently, or offload maintenance, escalations, and optimization tasks to Scale Computing’s experts.

What other solutions does Scale Computing offer enterprises looking to minimize risk, streamline their management operations, and work with greater efficiency?

Scale Computing offers a comprehensive product suite of AI-ready edge computing and network solutions, including SC//Reliant™ Edge Computing as a Service, a hardware- and cloud-agnostic, API-capable edge platform that empowers multi-site businesses to manage applications, networks, and security at scale; SC//Connect™ secure SD-WAN solutions that simplify WAN management and boost performance, security, and reliability across the enterprise; and the SC//HyperCore™ virtualization suite (delivered through SC//Fleet Manager™ edge orchestration software) which integrates software, servers, and storage into a fully unified virtualization suite.