Applying to Mastercard Lighthouse
By Sergey Goncharenko
We were encouraged to apply to Mastercard Lighthouse, and we are applying.
Why this programme
Lighthouse sits close to the institutions we need: Nordic and Baltic banks, the people who run financial-wellness budgets, and a network that treats regulated infrastructure as a starting condition rather than an obstacle. Balansa runs on PSD2 rails by design. That is a fit worth pursuing.
What we're bringing
A working pipeline on live bank data — PSD2 through normalisation, orchestration and our MCP reasoning layer, running end to end. A publicly usable stress check anyone can try. Early conversations with several Baltic and Nordic banks, one of which has a follow-up scheduled. And a thesis that extends past banking into public health.
What we are not bringing is revenue, a user cohort, or a measured accuracy figure. None of those exist yet.
Why the site now looks like this
Preparing the application meant answering the same questions repeatedly, so we rebuilt the site around them. The homepage is now a Lean Canvas: nine blocks, each expandable into detail, each separating what we have actually validated from what comes next.
Every evidence item on the site carries a label — validated, in progress, or planned. A meeting is not a pilot. An intention is not a metric. Labelling them differently is the only way the validated claims stay worth anything.
It also makes the gaps visible, which felt like the right trade. Anyone evaluating us will find them regardless; better they find them stated plainly than discover them later.
What's next
Instrument the metrics that matter — signal lead time and precision. Document the consent process that unblocks a real test cohort. Convert one bank conversation into a pilot.
Monthly updates from here.