Raghu Sastry
ModernRails, a financial technology company developing infrastructure for domestic and cross-border payments, has appointed Raghu Sastry as chief technology officer, strengthening its leadership team as it expands a unified payments orchestration platform.
Sastry brings more than 20 years of experience in engineering and technology leadership across semiconductors, enterprise infrastructure, mobile platforms and financial technology.
In his new role, he will oversee ModernRails’ technology strategy, platform architecture and product innovation, with responsibility for scaling the company’s payment orchestration capabilities across domestic and international financial networks.
The appointment supports ModernRails’ strategy to integrate payment messaging, clearing and settlement into a single infrastructure layer designed to support real-time transaction processing.
David Park, chief executive officer of ModernRails, said Sastry’s experience developing high-performance technology systems will be important to the company’s infrastructure development plans.
“Raghu operates at the intersection of performance engineering and financial infrastructure,” Park said.
“We are not building another payments application—we are building the control layer for how money moves globally. Raghu’s experience designing high-performance systems at scale is exactly what is required to execute on that vision.”
Before joining ModernRails, Sastry worked with FinTech Automation, where he helped develop the company’s infrastructure platform.
He previously held senior engineering and leadership positions at Agilent Technologies, PMC-Sierra, Junowallet and Zeuss Technologies.
His work has included developing scalable systems across hardware and software environments, with experience spanning semiconductor design, distributed computing, enterprise infrastructure and financial technology.
Sastry’s technical background includes very-large-scale integration (VLSI) design, server and storage architecture, mobile application frameworks and payments infrastructure for regulated financial institutions.
He has also worked on compliance-related technology systems, an area relevant to ModernRails’ efforts to connect financial institutions across payment networks with different operating and regulatory requirements.
At ModernRails, Sastry will focus on advancing the company’s architecture based on ISO 20022, an international standard for financial messaging and data exchange.
The standard enables financial institutions and payment systems to exchange structured transaction information, supporting interoperability across different networks and financial services platforms.
ModernRails is developing its platform to use ISO 20022-based messaging as a foundation for coordinating payment instructions, clearing processes and settlement activities.
The company’s objective is to reduce the fragmentation associated with financial institutions operating across multiple payment systems.
Domestic real-time payment networks and international settlement frameworks often involve different technical interfaces, processing schedules and operational requirements.
ModernRails aims to connect those systems through a common orchestration layer that coordinates transactions and supports consistent processing across participating networks.
Under Sastry’s leadership, the company plans to expand its ability to manage payment execution across multiple rails while improving transaction visibility, auditability and operational controls.
The platform is designed to support real-time and near-real-time processing, allowing financial institutions to coordinate payment activities across systems that may otherwise operate independently.
Sastry will also oversee technology development intended to improve the consistency and traceability of payment workflows.
ModernRails describes this approach as enabling deterministic transaction processing, in which payment instructions follow defined execution rules and generate records that can be reviewed for operational and compliance purposes.
The company is also incorporating data-driven orchestration and embedded intelligence into its infrastructure strategy.
These capabilities are intended to help financial institutions manage payment routing, processing and compliance requirements through a more integrated technology environment.
“Global payments are still constrained by fragmented systems and asynchronous processes,” Sastry said.
“ModernRails is solving that at the infrastructure level—bringing together messaging, clearing, and settlement into a cohesive, real-time platform.”
He added that the company sees an opportunity to improve how financial institutions operate at scale through data-driven orchestration and integrated technology.
Sastry holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of South Florida.
He is named on nine U.S. patents and has authored more than 20 research publications, reflecting his background in both academic research and applied engineering.
His appointment brings additional technical leadership to ModernRails as the company develops infrastructure intended for use by banks, fintech companies and other financial services providers.
ModernRails operates as a third-party service provider to the Federal Reserve and provides payment orchestration services connecting financial institutions with domestic and international payment networks.
Its platform supports payment messaging, clearing and settlement coordination, along with integrated compliance controls and foreign exchange capabilities.
The company is also developing interoperability with stablecoin-based payment systems as part of its broader infrastructure offering.
Stablecoin interoperability is intended to support connections between conventional financial networks and digital asset-based payment mechanisms, although implementation depends on the requirements of participating institutions and applicable regulatory frameworks.
ModernRails’ strategy centers on providing a unified technology layer rather than requiring financial institutions to manage separate integrations and workflows for every payment network.
The approach is intended to support more consistent transaction processing while reducing the complexity associated with connecting multiple financial systems.
As chief technology officer, Sastry will be responsible for translating that strategy into scalable platform architecture and product capabilities.
His appointment reflects ModernRails’ focus on expanding its engineering leadership as it pursues broader adoption of its payment infrastructure across domestic and cross-border markets.