The role of digital quality assurance in a rapidly evolving banking industry

With sudden spurt in the usage of digital banking applications worldwide, it is imperative for banking enterprises to leverage digital quality assurance solutions and ensure their net banking and mobile applications are digitalized. 

According to Jeff Casey, Sr. Research Director covering the banking and financial technology industries within Gartner’s Financial Services Research and Advisory team, “With a better understanding of the impact of COVID-19, banks and securities firms are now accelerating automation initiatives, such as customer-facing chatbots, robotic process automation (RPA) and end-to-end account origination solutions. They’re also focused on redesigning organization structures and workflows and reprioritizing modernization initiatives.” 

While Quality Assurance is being challenged in today’s world of faster and innovative approaches, this is where digital quality assurance is proving to be the best choice. 

According to a study by Vanson Bourne, an independent and trusted market research partner, Digital QA combines Speed, Quality, and intelligence into a single process of accelerated continuous quality. 

Benefits of AI in digital testing strategy 

The digital transformation testing will also include more usage of AI components and not just focus on advanced test automation. Some of the benefits of AI in digital assurance and testing include –  

• Saving time and enhancing correctness in the program by sorting and analysis through log files. 
• More reliable outcomes than traditional testing. 
• Self-healing automation frameworks. 

• Writing scripts and analyzing large datasets faster. 
• Minimizing future defects in an application by predicting defects instead of simply detecting them. 

The emerging technologies coupled with Artificial Intelligence (AI) is fast becoming the new battleground for enterprises to innovate and develop new products and services. 

Why banking systems are leveraging digital testing strategy while implementing digital transformation 

To provide a superior customer experience, the banking industry is heavily dependent on emerging technologies and it is imperative for all the digital banking applications to remain robust and perform seamlessly. 

According to Gartner forecasts, “Technology spending in the banking and securities industry is set to recover in 2021, growing 6.6% globally.” 

As banks deal with heavy transactions and crucial customer data round the clock, it becomes essentially vital in implementing the right digital assurance strategy.  

The large-scale integration of banking applications with 3rd party apps such as gaming applications, eCommerce apps, commute apps, and food delivery apps, etc. is a regular phenomenon.  

It is essential to have a proper digital quality assurance in place to ensure that the payment gateway integration is stable, and the customer is provided with a flawless experience. 

The banking servers and applications need to be quality tested, ensuring applications are performing well under any load conditions, and assuring no server outages. 

There is also a need for banks to ensure all possible efforts to save the data from cyber-attacks. Leveraging digital testing strategy with a vulnerability check of all the banking systems is essential to see there are no security lapses that can be exploited by cyber hackers. 

According to Globenewswire, “The global mobile banking market was valued at $715.3 million in 2018 and is expected to reach $1,824.7 million by 2026, registering a CAGR of 12.2% from 2019-2026.” 

While financial institutions must comply with certain regulations, compliances, and protocols, all the banking systems need to implement digital banking testing solutions to validate that none of the open banking API terms and conditions are missed. 

Digital Quality Assurance is the need of the hour 

With the ubiquity of smartphones, finance and banking sectors have witnessed a huge wave of digital transformation. They have leveraged mobility as a platform for hassle free banking services and benefits.  

Effective digital assurance services for mobile apps thus ensure seamless access to data, loyal customers, and secure B2B transactions which in-turn provides omni-channel experience with emerging mobile technologies. 

The digital assurance solutions focus on satisfying the digital demands of the customer such as enhanced user experience, and ease-of-use. They ensure agility and lead to a well-organized methodology across business collaterals.  

Overcoming challenges  

Banking in the digital age is all about customers getting the ultimate experience.  

To achieve this, one might consider overcoming a few of the challenges while implementing digital quality assurance in omni-channel banking such as adhering to compliance with security standards, failed transactions in banking portals, and traceability. 

To overcome these challenges, it is imperative to have a well-defined digital quality assurance strategy with focus on end-to-end functionalities.  

An overall automated performance testing catering to all workflows that bridge the gap between requirements and implementation will foster agility. 

While ensuring customer experience across all channels such as mobile, web, and cloud, the banks must also guarantee safe transactions and safeguarding of customer’s sensitive information across all touchpoints.  

An IT workforce with heightened ingenuity and adaptivity to rapidly evolving technology advancements in banking systems is required to satisfy millennial consumer’s best-in-class digital experience expectations. 

A few takeaways in the path of digital transformation 

The role of digital quality assurance is very critical in the rapidly evolving banking industry. A few takeaways in the path of digital transformation are as follows –  

• Take all the parameters of digitalization into consideration and come up with a comprehensive digital assurance strategy. 
• Consider automating end-to-end functionalities at the start of the project as and when the requirements are ready. They can be tweaked as and when the features change. 
• Focus on omnichannel experience testing to validate end-to-end customer experience. 
• Accelerate the usage of virtualization solutions and clearly define cloud testing strategies. 

• Increase the overall test efficiency that will ultimately reduce costs. 
• Adapt to new emerging technologies and consider having a Testing Center of Excellence (TCoE) to stay ahead of competition. 

The banking and financial organizations are taking all steps required to enhance their customer experience. To do so, they are looking at service providers to overhaul their delivery strategy and guarantee software quality to mitigate any financial damage. 

Conclusion 

The banking and financial companies have always been at the forefront while adapting to the changing technology trends. To extend end customer engagement across new channels and drive revenue growth, CIOs of banking and financial segments are largely shifting their priorities from maintenance to developing and implementing new systems inducing digital quality assurance in every methodology. 

Cigniti, with its experience of being the core banking Digital Transformation and testing partner for pioneering mobile-only banks in US & UK, has vindicated its capabilities in areas such as omni-channel banking, retail banking, corporate banking, centralized banking, mortgages, cards and payment gateways.  

Cigniti’s value proposition across banking segments include core banking systems, digital/omnichannel banking, payments, and lending & mortgages. It owns key proprietary testing automation framework for banks that can be used across multiple applications and mobile devices with minimal rework enabling test teams to deliver solutions quickly and realize greater ROI. 

Connect with our banking services testing experts and schedule a discussion regarding how we can help you deliver the best-in-class application to your users.