Sandeep Sood, Founder and CEO of Kunai, has spent the past two decades building elite software teams. In 2015, he sold his first agency, Monsoon, to Capital One, where he spent the next three years gaining firsthand experience in how financial products are developed within a large corporation. This experience now informs the work at Kunai, enabling the company to deliver even more effective solutions.
Kunai develops full-stack technology solutions for banks, credit and payment networks, infrastructure providers, and their customers. Leveraging a team of skilled designers, developers, and product managers, Kunai transforms ideas from initial concepts to large-scale deployment. By focusing on modernization and emerging industry trends, the company helps clients optimize their operations and position themselves for long-term growth in the evolving financial landscape.
We discuss the future of AI, fintech, and stablecoins.
What inspired you to start Kunai after your experience at Capital One, and how did your time at Monsoon and Capital One shape your approach to building Kunai?
At Monsoon, I spent twenty years working with financial institutions from the outside – as a vendor. After our acquisition by Capital One, I learned what it was like to sit at the other side of the table – as an executive who managed teams and vendors. That experience gave me a dose of empathy for what it’s like to be an executive inside one of these organizations. I saw firsthand how large financial institutions struggle with legacy infrastructure, slow decision-making, and operational inefficiencies. I realized that consultants generally lack the understanding necessary to help FIs get things done at their scale and within their limitations.
That was the spark for Kunai—I wanted a consulting partner that understood an executive’s challenges and how best to help them succeed despite those challenges. I couldn’t find a partner that really got it – so I decided to build one.
With stablecoins surpassing Visa and Mastercard in overall transaction volume, how do you see their role evolving in the payments landscape?
I’d first note that while the total volume of stablecoin transactions (estimated somewhere between $15.6 Trillion and $27,6 Trillion) has surpassed Visa and Mastercard, the number of individual transactions is much lower, given that they are generally used for much larger transactions.
With that said, stablecoins aren’t just a crypto experiment anymore—they’re beginning to prove themselves as a potential backbone for modern financial transactions. They’ve proven they can move money faster and cheaper than traditional rails, and now we’re seeing institutional players take them seriously. The next phase is regulatory clarity and integration into mainstream financial infrastructure—and that’s where things get interesting.
Banks that dismiss stablecoins as just another crypto trend will find themselves playing catch-up in a few years. The smart ones are already figuring out how to integrate stablecoin payments into their offerings to stay ahead of the curve.
What are the key advantages stablecoins offer over traditional payment networks?
It comes down to speed, cost, and accessibility. Stablecoins settle transactions instantly, without the multi-day clearing processes of traditional banking. Fees are significantly lower than credit card networks or SWIFT transactions.
Most importantly, stablecoins remove geographical barriers. Startups like Bitso are leveraging Circle’s USDC in order to lower costs for transfers to Mexico, and thousands of freelancers around the world are being paid through MakerDAO’s DAI, a stablecoin also pegged to the dollar. These solutions give businesses and individuals in emerging markets access to the same financial infrastructure as those in developed economies, which is a game-changer.
Do you think banks and credit unions are underestimating the impact of stablecoins on their business models?
Most banks are too focused on short-term risks and aren’t seeing the long-term shift happening in payments. Stablecoins have already eaten into remittance markets, B2B payments, and cross-border settlements—all areas banks once dominated.
We’ve seen this story before with BNPL, fintech lending, and embedded finance. The institutions that ignored those trends lost market share, while the ones that adapted found new revenue streams. Banks can either embrace stablecoins as a payment rail or watch fintechs and crypto-native firms replace them in certain segments.
What obstacles do stablecoins face in terms of mainstream adoption, and how can they be addressed?
The biggest barriers are regulation, interoperability, and trust. Regulators are still figuring out how to oversee stablecoins while keeping financial systems stable. But once clear frameworks are in place, institutional adoption will accelerate.
Interoperability is another challenge—for stablecoins to scale, they need to integrate seamlessly with traditional payment networks. That means banks, fintechs, and stablecoin issuers must collaborate on infrastructure rather than operate in silos.
Lastly, trust—the failures of algorithmic stablecoins hurt public perception, but fiat-backed stablecoins with proper reserves are proving their reliability. As more big players enter the space, that trust will continue to grow.
How do stablecoins change the dynamics of cross-border payments, and what industries stand to benefit the most?
Stablecoins are turning cross-border payments into real-time transactions, which is a huge improvement over SWIFT’s multi-day settlements and high fees.
Industries that rely on global supply chains, freelancing, and international B2B payments will see massive benefits. E-commerce, gaming, and digital media are already moving toward stablecoin settlements because they offer faster, lower-cost payments with no currency conversion headaches.
How is AI reshaping financial institutions, and what innovations are you most excited about?
Back in the 2000s, we used to tell our consulting customers that ‘every problem is now a software problem’. The same, of course, is now true of AI. There are areas within financial institutions where machine learning and AI have been important for many years, such as fraud detection, risk management, etc. But now that LLMs exist, there is no internal process or customer interaction that won’t be dramatically improved by AI. Every problem will also be an AI problem. We are at the beginning of something equally significant, if not much more significant, than the advent of computers, and there won’t be a single industry that isn’t transformed by AI.
What are the biggest challenges financial institutions face when implementing AI solutions?
The first issue is data, data, and data. Without clean, well-organized, and fully integrated data, AI will always be limited in what it can accomplish. Today, bank data exists in silos, without a consistent ontology. There are many things that can be accomplished despite this, but once data is cleaned up and integrated, there are endless possibilities.
The second thing is bureaucracy. A bureaucratic mindset makes it very difficult to innovate at a rapid enough pace to prevent getting disrupted. Bank bureaucracies make it difficult to work with innovative startups; they make it difficult to get new technologies improved. They prevent efficient ideas from winning on their merits. The biggest challenge at banks is that ambitious executives often get jaded by bureaucracy and leave before they see their ideas implemented.
How is Kunai using AI to enhance financial products and services?
We have built a platform called Pontus that allows financial institutions to build agents, apps, and actions in a way that is both intuitive and customized to the institution’s technical stack, processes, and culture. The goal isn’t to provide a one-size-fits-all solution, but rather to work collaboratively with our customers to build agents that are tailored to every department in their company.
What strategies should traditional financial institutions adopt to stay competitive in this new landscape?
Traditional financial institutions should:
- Accelerate AI and Adoption: Treat AI as a strategic priority, not a distant prospect. Invest in integrated, high-quality data while empowering teams to leverage pre-approved automation solutions. Foster open knowledge-sharing to drive rapid innovation.
- Streamline Processes: Recognize the importance of regulatory compliance but remove unnecessary internal barriers. Simplify approvals, expedite decision-making, and maintain an environment where top talent can innovate effectively.
By balancing regulatory responsibility with agility, financial institutions can retain key executives, deliver superior client experiences, and remain competitive in a landscape shaped by rapid technological change.
What advice would you give financial institutions looking to integrate stablecoin payments or AI-driven financial solutions?
If I were heading technology for a large financial institution, I would take very different approaches to the two opportunities:
- AI Automation: I would work on data in a centralized way, as I’ve said above. Fixing your source of truth is a necessary precursor to being truly competitive with AI. However, when it comes to experimentation, I would want to see a thousand flowers bloom. After I ensured that I had approved LLMs and added guard-rails, I would encourage teams to build their own solutions throughout my organization. I’d start with solutions that customers don’t interact with directly, in order to further minimize risk, but I would want every department working on AI automation.
- Stablecoins: I’d find one use case, the absolute most compelling use case I could find, for a stablecoin experiment: let’s say I picked foreign remittances. I would then start with the US and one other country. I’d limit myself to a stablecoin pegged to the dollar, of course, and I’d leverage the very best talent available to build a beta version of one solution to one specific problem. Once I’ve proven that this one test is successful, I would scale that test to at least a million users before I even considered expanding my scope.
Thank you for the great interview, readers who wish to learn more should visit Kunai.