How to Test the Digital Quality of the Financial Sector?

Digital Quality Assurance

The financial sector, especially the banking system has seen tremendous growth in its footprint primarily driven by technology. Although technology has helped the sector to improve efficiency and enhance the scale and speed of delivering services, there is still scope for improvement. The leading banks and financial institutions have leveraged technology to improve their operational models and aim at meeting the growing customer expectations. The technologies enabling the financial sector to address the challenges of the day include Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence driven chatbots, process automation using Robotics, and distributed ledger technology among others.

Even though these technologies help in enhancing the serviceability and customer experience, they are needed as per the new norms mandated by regulatory bodies – BASEL III, GDPR, and FATCA to name a few. As customers are becoming busier and more techno savvy, they want their banking services to follow suit. Importantly, the customers of today, especially the millennials, are no longer limited in their choice of banks. In fact, they are more likely to gravitate towards the ones that put customer satisfaction at their core.

The complexity of banking and financial services needs the application of stringent digital testing in driving quality, integrity and customer satisfaction. The complexity encompasses activities such as auditing and reporting, large scale integration, seamless transactions, robust data storage, and pre-emptive incident management.

To sustain competitive advantage, the banking applications should be consistent in delivering top notch performance, easy access, stringent security, and better user experience. Also, since the financial sector deals with critical business and personal data, it should be secured from the activities of fraudsters and cyber criminals. Thus, to ensure quality across the digital landscape that is part of the financial sector, banking application testing should be performed in right earnest.

In addition to the above deliverables, digital testing can help mitigate glitches, support customer friendly initiatives, comply with stringent data standards, meet industry regulations and roll out market ready software applications.

What ails the financial sector?

• The BFSI sector using legacy systems are mostly non-compatible with evolving technologies. Ensuring compatibility would incur huge costs.
• Building and adopting customized applications with the right functionality given the plethora of choices available in the market.
• Technology often suffers from hiccups when real time applications face latency or downtime sending the customer experience for a toss.
• The implementation of new technology can cause disruptions or witness teething troubles, even if on a temporary basis.
• The strict compliance to regulations mandated by industry or government bodies are not comprehensive or focused every time. 

Software testing for the financial sector enabling customer satisfaction

The interconnectedness and complexity of financial applications necessitate the execution of end-to-end digital quality assurance. These involve omni-channel testing, performance testing, security testing, customer experience testing, scalability testing (load and stress), and mobile app testing. It is only by implementing comprehensive digital transformation services that the financial sector can handle operational risks, improve productivity, and enhance customer experience.

Testing digital quality for the financial sector

The digital landscape enveloping the financial sector has become highly complex thanks to the presence of legacy systems and the adoption of the latest technologies. To ensure synergy and compatibility between the two strands – legacy systems and latest technologies, the digital quality of the same should be tested.

To cite an example of the inherent complexities, there is a need to execute around 200 test scripts for every release of a banking application. The releases are warranted due to the frequent changing of regulatory requirements and market dynamics. Also, people developing such applications can be under pressure to reduce the time to market thereby allocating less time for digital QA.

·         The digital quality assurance team should use automated testing to validate the quality of applications across a plethora of device platforms, browsers, operating systems, or networks. Also, the banking applications should be tested on wearable devices such as Apple Watch and Google Glass as well.

·         Conduct robust banking domain testing using an effective test suite and in an enabling environment. The testing should ensure data integrity while masking information.

·         Implement test automation and pre-empt the ingress of bugs or glitches in the early phase of the SDLC.

Conclusion

The financial sector should embrace digitization in a big way to drive innovation, productivity, and quality, besides enhancing the customer experience. It should implement robust digital QA before rolling out new products or services to address the issues around security, serviceability, customer experience and competition.

Check out this White Paper that discusses Digital Assurance strategies, challenges and possibilities.