While customers are demanding faster, safer, and user-friendly banking experiences, the fintech industry is transforming. Hundreds of every thousand organizations struggle with outmoded systems, growing cyber threats, and changing customer needs, making it a very good time to innovate.
This fintech app development guide will give you an idea about the types of fintech solutions, highlight success factors, and give you an idea of the costs. By the end of this article, you will know the answer to how to build a compliant fintech app and an even more critical part - its cost.
We offer digital products for iOS/Android native and cross-platform app development. We have used our expertise working with Ukraine's №1 private parcel delivery service and helped many companies to grow. Stfalcon has over 350 completed projects and a team of over 80+ specialists built products people rely on by 100M+ people worldwide.
What is a Fintech App?
Fintech is a financial technology that relates to financial services. Firms can use fintech projects to simplify payments, loans, trading, insurance, etc. These apps are efficient, innovative, and ready to tackle real user problems in the financial space.
FinTech app development process for mobile devices running on iOS and Android, Symbian, or Windows Phone consists of the creation of apps, as fintech heavily relies on mobile platforms. Financial tools must be available at any time and anywhere. Mobile apps are taking care of this need, as they are convenient and secure.
Yet, iOS and Android dominate mobile app usage. Therefore, they are indispensable to fintech success. Features of their support include secure transactions, clean interfaces, and scalable fintech solutions to meet user needs.
Advantages of Using Payment Solution Apps
Integrating technology into the finance industry has benefits for businesses and users. These advantages include the following:
Variety of payment options
A vast selection of online payment possibilities is now available to businesses and consumers because of the growth of Fintech. Integrating an extra method in your payment app or website will help companies reduce their dependence on traditional banking. Adding new payment methods is more secure, cheaper, and better for user experience and trust.
More accessible and affordable financing
New businesses often need help to get approved for a loan to expand or launch their operations. Individuals with an extended credit history can also avoid obstacles (e.g., rigid requirements on your credit score) when getting a bank loan. Fintech app development can disrupt the credit market and allow people alternative ways to acquire funding.
Access to Investing
Fintech software has brought opportunities for investment to all people. Fintech projects provide an affordable, user-friendly platform and guide on innovative investment strategies. With this accessibility, traditional investing barriers are broken down as people can invest regardless of their financial background.
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Get a Free ConsultationMain Types of Fintech Apps
To decide how to build a Fintech app, you must carefully choose the correct route for its growth.
Banking Apps / NeoBank Apps
Most banks favor utilizing mobile banking applications to offer improved services to their customers, but only a few effectively satisfy their customers' desires. They don’t need physical visits to the bank, being convenient and quick. A financial app such as Revolut or Starling shows how these apps can make or break traditional banking services.
Loan Apps
Peer-to-peer lending apps reduce barriers to personal and business loans, which are alternatives to conventional lending. With Kiva, users can borrow smaller amounts with no interest for opportunities for financial growth.
RegTech Apps
RegTech, or regulatory technology, is a sector of the economy that gives businesses Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions and cloud computing to help them meet regulatory compliance requirements. Machine Learning and Big Data enable them to reduce fraud risks and compliance. In such a heavily regulated industry, these solutions are vital.
Personal Finance Apps
Budgeting apps are made for personal finance, such as investment advice and spending management. Users are offered tools for following, investing, and saving toward financial goals. Budgeting, goal setting, and expenditure tracking are all popular examples, and Mint is such an instance.
Cryptocurrency Apps
Crypto apps allow users to trade, manage, and invest in digital currencies. Platforms like Coinbase and Binance lead the way, reflecting the increasing popularity of crypto investments. All these apps come with a secure trading environment and real-time market data.
Trading / Stock Apps
Stock trading apps easily maintain your portfolio and give you real-time updates on your investment. Addepar is tailored explicitly to advisors and investors, and its features can manage all types of assets, regardless of currency.
Insurance Apps
These apps aim to accelerate the management of policies and the implementation of insurance. With the help of an insurance app, people everywhere can quickly obtain coverage. If you are considering apps for Fintech in the insurance industry, pay attention to the BIMA app..
Mortgage Apps
Mortgage apps make applying for a home easier with just a few button presses on their cell phones. No longer need to wait in lines and sign many forms. Prominent mortgage apps include Rocket Mortgage, Mortgage by Zillow, and other offerings.
Wealth Management Apps
Wealth management apps allow you to do asset management, portfolio optimization, and financial planning. They help users and protect their wealth. Investment tracking, retirement planning, and financial advice services. One of the leading examples is Personal Capital.
Fintech Application Development Trends for 2025.
Following the latest industry trends is crucial to create a fintech app. Guess what? As usual, we are happy to tell you about them:
Big Data, Machine Learning and AI.
In a way, fintech companies use AI and machine learning to enhance the customer experience and operations and provide instant, personalized advice, risk management, and data analytics.
Blockchain and NFTs
Now that blockchain offers transparency, security, and speed. It gives users more control over their assets. Its impact on the financial sector is rising as more and more blockchain fintech startups emerge.
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
In the PaaS environment, fintech, you can respond quickly to market changes. Use tools like process payments, manage resources, and analyze credit risk.
Embedded Finance
It allows customers to transact on digital platforms without physical cards or terminals. As a result, people are transforming the way they manage their money.
Major Requirements for Fintech App Development
Handling people's money is an activity that requires careful management, as misplacing or mishandling someone's finances can result in serious repercussions, including imprisonment. How can one make a fintech app that meets everyone's expectations? Be sure to consider the points listed below when creating your fintech application.
Simplicity and Usability
An investment app needs to have a user-friendly interface. The process should simplify the complexity of finance into a simple value proposition aimed at a mass market. It takes a straightforward navigation and intuitive design to retain and satisfy users.
Client Assistance
Fintech software needs reliable customer support. Users must be able to get fast and efficient help, whether through in-app help or even integrated customer service. Trust and loyalty come with this feature.
API Management
Having a complete API management system is essential when building a fintech app. In that case, app utility and convenience add up by connecting to payment gateways. For example, PayPal or Stripe could be responsible for providing extra payment services to the users.
Security Arrangements
Safety is no doubt the primary worry when creating a fintech application. Things like encryption, two-factor authentication, OTP login, and biometric boarding of your info. Stopping bad practices will protect your app and its users from this threat.
Legal Requirements
Ensuring your product adheres to all relevant legal requirements is critical for effortless fintech project creation. Payment security standards like PCI-DSS, data privacy standards like GDPR, and identity verification standards (KYC/AML) will keep your app running legally and morally.
Fintech Mobile App Development Team
It would be ideal if you had a team of professionals to achieve an exceptional finished product with the correct attributes, a good look, and top-notch performance. It is improbable that you will succeed by merely hiring independent personnel. It would help if you had a comprehensive mobile fintech app development company for speedy and excellent results..
Key Features of Fintech Mobile Apps
Developers can determine the effectiveness of fintech applications similarly to other apps. These features need to be included since each of them helps to improve usability and accessibility. They also make fintech projects indispensable for making modern financial management.
Personal Account
Users need a personal account to manage their finances. It holds banking cards, payment records, or financial activity. The design should be short and should only show the essential information in an easy-to-navigate way.
Payment Gateway
One of the most critical features of FinTech applications is integrating a secure payment gateway so that transactions flow smoothly. As for Stfalcon, we use certified third-party software for encryption throughout your transactions.
We send HTTP requests to this gateway through REST-API and process the responses according to our business logic. For mobile and web scenarios, we use SDKs, which make integrating it easy by taking care of security and verification at the checkout stage. SDK handles all personal data and card details; the user never puts sensitive information directly into an app.
Financial Management
Enable your users to keep track of their funds. This includes budgeting, following a determined plan for finances, budgeting for expenses, creating rules for shopping online, and many other options. These features give users great power over how much they spend, empowering them to make educated financial decisions.
Ability to Connect Bank Cards
It should be a fundamental feature: allowing users to link their payment cards. The app’s use becomes a lot less valuable without it. Features such as virtual card generation can also be added for bank-specific apps.
Transaction History and Payment Templates
Users can see a transaction history to see their financial exchanges and easily pull up past payments. Recurring payment templates or templates for payments like utility bills or mortgages save time and streamline the payment process.
Choosing the Right Fintech App Tech Stack
Choosing the right tech stack is essential for fintech software to make your app functional, scalable, and secure. Let's explore which tech stacks would be optimal for creating fintech applications:
Android
Java and Kotlin are the programming languages of choice when building Android fintech software because they are robust and support all the latest features. Android Jetpack provides essential UI components, and Android SDK provides the building block for building the core functionality of an app. SQLite, Realm, and Room are all for data storage. Firebase and Amplitude are used for analytics and tracking user behavior.
IOS
When it comes to developing iOS fintech projects, you have the choice between Swift and Objective-C. The iOS SDK and CocoaTouch frameworks are the mainstay as they provide the basics, like UI elements and network communication.
We use CoreData and KeyChain for stable data storage and rely on CryptoSwift to encrypt information. Essential analytics tools like Firebase and AppsFlyer are integrated to show how your app performs and who the user is.
Cross-Platform
If you want to develop a fintech app for both Android and iOS with one codebase, cross-platform frameworks such as Flutter or React Native are great. In particular, Flutter is famous for creating smooth, high-performance apps at a fraction of the cost and good quality apps across platforms.
How to Develop a Fintech App
Let's examine a straightforward guide to building a fintech app for mobile devices.
Step 1: Research Stage
Before you start developing, ensure you know your target audience inside out – and what their pain points are. Thinking about feedback from non-technical stakeholders such as the accountants' financial advisors will be the ones responsible for modifying your idea and taking action with the capital. Users could also be considered as they will be spending the money. It will help you get a different point of view as to what features it wants.
Research potential regulatory changes that could impact your app's functionality and determine how your app might adapt. The more you know about the complexities of the fintech ecosystem, the more your app will fulfill real-world needs.
Step 2: Build a Team
Your mobile banking app development team should know all the technical parts and be financially oriented and upmarket security standards. Having someone on the core team with legal expertise in financial regulation is good because compliance is essential in fintech.
Additionally, seek out those familiar with agile workflows. These characteristics will be essential and may need to take a leap or be adjusted quickly in response to real-time feedback.
Step 3: Define MVP Scope
You should take the following steps to establish the boundaries of your MVP (Minimum Viable Product) and the application as a whole:
- Gather data on the market environment about your product.
- Obtain input from your development staff to understand which features are essential to the app.
- Utilize strategies like the Prioritization matrix to assess and record the chosen features.
- Validate the core idea and verify whether the required resources to bring it to fruition are accessible.
Also, tackle the inclusion of new capabilities like solid AI-based fraud detection blockchain-based authentication to expose the haze.
Step 4: Choose a Tech Stack
When thinking about your tech stack, consider how it will expand as your user base increases. In mobile development, think of frameworks like Flutter or React Native. Look also if they can meet fintech-specific needs, e.g., secure payments and management of financial data.
Playing it safe isn’t the way in either of these cases. Instead, consider scaling more efficiently by considering serverless architectures that can scale better in reaction to changes in user demand. Explore how blockchain technology can secure and immutable transaction records. Serverless technologies, such as AWS Lambda, Azure Functions, or Google Cloud Functions, can help cut operational costs while maintaining flexibility.
Step 5: Build APIs
For your fintech project to offer services like bill tracking and budgeting, you must either use existing business functionalities or develop them from the ground up. Regardless of your choice, it is imperative to form REST APIs for integration with the website. We recommend constructing Representational State Transfer APIs for this purpose.
Your APIs should be able to work with both legacy financial systems (such as banks) and third parties (payment gateway, crypto networks). The Fintech software doesn’t work without security protocols such as OAuth 2.0 for authorization and JWT (JSON Web Tokens) for authentication.
Step 6: Fintech App Design
Make your app accessible and ensure it’s usable by people with visual disabilities or impairments. Many users may find it difficult to read small fonts or differentiate between colors. Put high-contrast themes in place, give users adjustable font sizes, and offer text-to-speech options. Small touches like these can increase user experience and expand the appeal of your app.
Step 7: Launch a Beta Version
Your app's Beta version shouldn’t be exclusive to local customers. It should also choose a diverse group of users with different financial backgrounds and literacy levels. This will result in you getting feedback from many more unfiltered ranges of persons.
When you’re in the Beta phase, use A/B testing of various features or layouts to gather data to improve the user interface and user experience. Use real-time monitoring tools to identify the problem as soon as it is encountered and have plans of action ready in case of a problem.
Step 8: Update Your App
In response to regulatory updates, fintech projects have to be incredibly agile. For example, new data privacy laws, such as the European Union’s GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and California’s CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act). These laws are required to be baked into the app's core functionality. Feature improvements should not be the only thing that recent updates focus on. This is also the time when you should be compliant with new regulations.
What Does It Cost to Build a Fintech App?
To build a compliant fintech app without financial difficulties, let's look at the development and maintenance costs depending on the project's size.
Small tasks can cost between $30,000−$50,000 and contain basic, user-friendly designs and capabilities. Whereas, for a more complex system with additional features and technology, the expense will be between $50,000−$85,000.
An enterprise-level fintech application of a more complex size will generally cost about $80,000+. Bear in mind that the ultimate price of producing the Fintech application can be affected by a range of considerations, such as the geographical area of the development staff, the number of your demands, the functional complexity, and any additional scaling.
How Can Stfalcon Help You?
The Stfalcon team has in-depth knowledge of developing fintech applications and has previously provided outstanding mobile development services to industry collaborators in the Fintech realm.
What services do we offer?
- All-in-one development (back-end, front-end; UX/UI design).
- Management of back-office operations.
- Guaranteed security and compliance.
- Data gathering and handling.
Our Experience
Credit Agricole
One of our partners is Credit Agricole, the most prominent French bank and one of the biggest French companies. We created a user interface for Cash Agricole payment kiosks to free up bank offices from long lines and lighten the employees' workload.
Read the full case study
SDK for a cryptocurrency wallet
Stfalcon.com was tasked with developing an SDK for a cryptocurrency wallet that would work seamlessly across Android and IOS. Our team's main objective was to merge the business logic and utilize the same codebase on multiple platforms. We accomplished this by leveraging Kotlin Multiplatform technology.
Read the full case study
Summary
Lastly, building a fintech mobile app can be challenging. Understanding the various kinds of fintech services, industry trends, and the fundamental needs for app development allows you to design innovative products, fulfilling the expectations of today's tech-savvy consumers.
With all the functionality mentioned above, a well-developed fintech project may help you deliver the best experience in payments, lending, investment, and wealth management while guaranteeing compliance with security and legal standards. However, successfully developing fintech software is achievable with the right team, strategy, and reliance on the most advanced technologies, such as AI, blockchain, and big data.
If you want to develop a fintech application, just contact us. We are always glad to provide a free consultation and help you build a fintech app.
FAQs About Fintech App
What are the most important technological considerations when developing a Fintech mobile app?
If you’re building a fintech software, ensure strong security practices. Usually, that’s all about MFA, preventing CSRF, and guarded database handling. It’s also nice to have secure 3rd party integrations. Make regular updates to remain compliant with an ever-changing set of regulations.
What are the common monetization strategies for fintech apps?
Look into ways to monetize your app from the minute you start. Consider subscription services, transaction fees, and in-app advertising (without overwhelming your users). However, it’s all up to you. Other options include partnering with a financial institution or investment platform and monetizing anonymized data.
How does the user experience design differ for fintech apps compared to other types of mobile applications?
The user-friendly fintech software should have easy navigation, a simple interface, and a login. Set the priorities of your content right with clear font, and make transactions simple. Do not add too many things and unwanted information. Offer simple and accessible customer support and give users a glance over or decline their cards. Keep things simple, and that’ll gain you loyal users.
