Living and banking on the financial margin is expensive. The financially vulnerable pay more than their wealthy counterparts in banking, overdraft, late payment, and alternative financial services fees, trapping them in a cycle of economic stress. Technology has the potential to alleviate financial anxiety, and software that automates short-term savings and timely bill payments within a zero-barrier banking platform can reduce the cost of being poor. However, perfecting the timing and coordination of automated transactions in a microservice ecosystem with a global user-base is complex. In this talk, I will outline these technical challenges, review the potential user- and data-driven approaches, and discuss the optimal solution for my team’s use case.