How QA Testing Drives Digitalization in Banking

Most industries advancing their digital transformation are increasingly relying on Quality Assurance (QA) and testing. The banking sector is taking a cue from several industries' digital roadmaps to maximize their prosperity from technology adoption. At the end of the day, quality-assured digital banking services help meet the expectations of technologically equipped customers.

Banking digital transformation has ensured increased data transparency, removal of unnecessary middlemen, and advancement in access and security for financial and intellectual data. To stay afloat amidst tough competition from all kinds of viable online financial platforms, banking software testing involves the implementation of AI and blockchain technologies.

Banks need to ensure that they can offer their customers more personalized services and other value-additions. QA brings the best out of digital transformation for any industry and it does the same for banking. With reliable testing tools and automation of manual processes involved, banks achieve high-cost savings as well.

This article talks about what makes QA testing essential for banking systems and the sector at large. We will go on to list the top reasons why banking systems are leveraging the advantages of QA testing.

Why Is QA Essential For Banking Systems?

A financial error at any stage in the banking transactional process could be a highly critical one to the customer and to the bank's reputation. Bugs in financial software are usually very complex but there is no organization that would not go to any lengths to stay on top of this problem. 

While assuring the quality of a banking application or portal, QA and automation testing of software also helps keep up with the constantly changing banking regulatory compliances. As developers of these banking applications are required to have domain knowledge, so is the expectation from testers as well.

As banking and financial software deals with all kinds of processes like processing claims, online payments, trading portfolios, asset management, etc., a good knowledge of these processes is also essential for testers. Most competent FinTech providers are privy to these facets of finance and therefore, prepare a test plan in accordance with the same. 

Factors That Drive QA Adoption In The Banking Sector 

Banks must have the right QA strategy in place to properly handle the high volumes of sensitive customer data and transactions on a regular basis. These strategies help to ensure that the banking services and portals are foolproof, authenticated with end-to-end encryption, ensure seamless transactions and a great customer experience. 

The following factors motivate more and more organizations to adopt better QA strategies in their software development lifecycle:

1)Layered Financial Systems

Banks that lead the sector in innovation tend to have multi-layered or N-tier underlying architectures for their systems. These commonly consist of the presentation, application, and database layers of the banking software. 

As all the API layers involved in banking transactions directly communicate with the data and presentation layers, they require end-to-end QA testing. Backend middleware systems must be prepared to support open APIs as the new standard in core banking service delivery. API testing and robotic QA automation must be implemented for these layers.

2)Third-Party Apps And Gateway Integrations

Food delivery applications, e-commerce portals, and gamified apps are some of the third-party integrations that banking systems require. These are integrated with the aim to make the end-user experience stand out against the mundanity of banking. 

For these third-party integrations to function smoothly with the core banking system, periodic integration and functional testing need to be carried out during the life cycle. Glitches, where transaction failures and irregular payment gateway errors take place for an account, can be reduced with these testing methods.

3)Protection From Cyber-Threats

The safety and privacy of each of the bank's customers are paramount as they deal with sensitive and crucial customer data on an everyday basis. All possible efforts should be taken to ensure that this data is protected from cyber-attacks. With evolving banking technologies, the programming and vulnerability detection abilities of hackers are also advancing simultaneously. 

A 2019 Forbes survey found that financial firms experienced 300 times more cyber-attacks than other industries. Therefore, it is essential that banking systems are taken through Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing (VAPT) periodically and as often as is feasible. The smartest hackers come up with newer methods every day to illegally enter banking networks and meddle with sensitive data. So VAPT is inarguably the most important suite of tools for banking organizations.

4)Instantaneous Cloud Adoption

An unprecedented number of large banking organizations have shifted their entire infrastructure to the cloud to promote increased cloud-only banking. The most popular configuration for these organizations has been the hybrid cloud model with public and private cloud capabilities. The private cloud is utilized for critical processes, while non-critical applications are run on the public cloud.

Implementing cloud banking is not a completely smooth process as several traditional institutions still struggle with it. This is where cloud app testing comes in to ensure that cloud-based banking solutions are implemented correctly. This also helps in minimizing any loss in data during the migration process. 

5)Navigation And Effective AI Implementation

When designing a banking app, it is important to make sure that users are able to navigate to the exact page that they are looking for. To make sure that the app allows easy and apt navigation, usability testing is the banks' best bet. Test cases for usability testing take in all possible user inputs to bring back the expected output, to cover all bases.

The digital transformation of banks also involves AI adoption for advanced data analytics, fraud prevention, and teller automation. AI testing is an essential strategy for a growing number of organizations, both traditional and contemporary unicorns.

ALSO READ: What is Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing (VAPT)?

QA Testing Is Part Of A Successful Banking Digitalization Strategy

The banking industry is rapidly moving towards complete digitalization in its service delivery strategies. Areas of the banking paradigm that requires timely and well-planned testing are quality, performance, usability, AI, security, and reliability.

Therefore, banking systems must leverage QA testing to provide their customers with the most seamless banking apps, portals and payment gateways. Find out how you can do so with Daffodil's Software Testing Services.