Best Practices in Fintech Software Development

Fintech software development has become an increasingly important actor in the financial landscape. The fintech industry is evolving at a rapid pace. In 2023 alone, over $9000 billion in annual transaction volumes are expected to be transacted through fintech.

The growth will be driven by the emergence of new business models and decentralized technologies. This trend is disrupting the traditional banking and payments businesses. These new challenges require fintech software developers to adapt their skills and practices.

Best Practices in Fintech Software Development

That is why many of you may wonder what the best practices in fintech software development are. It can be hard to find the "golden path" as there are different methods and processes available. In this article, we will discuss a few best practices that should be considered when developing financial software.

Agile development

Agile methodology is the most preferred way to develop software applications. Since it offers flexibility, speed, and efficiency at the same time. It also follows a set of principles that help you to create quality software without any delays.

So what stands behind this methodology? Agile development is based on small teams working together to solve problems quickly. It involves frequent feedback and collaboration between all members of the team. The main principle behind this is to deliver software quickly, to meet user needs as they arise.

Agile methods help to ensure that you have an effective working relationship between devs and users from the outset. Devs should be able to take advantage of feedback from users during the testing phases. It allows devs to fix errors before they are deployed into production systems.

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Testing and quality assurance

Testing and quality assurance are vitally important for a software company. Moreover, testing should be an ongoing process. It is not something that happens once development is complete. Test teams should be involved in every stage of development. That is from conceptualization through launch and beyond. Regular testing will keep your product up-to-date. It will also ensure that the product remains competitive in the market.

In addition to fixing any bugs that may be present in your codebase, quality assurance also focuses on usability and user experience (UX). Testing software in terms of UX means looking at how users will interact with the interface. As well as, how they will experience the overall product, and how easy it is for them to accomplish their goals.

This is important as it helps to ensure that your product meets the needs of your intended users.

Continuous integration and delivery

CI/CD software development practice involves automating the build, test, and deployment pipeline. This method helps improve code quality, increase developer productivity, and reduce costs. The idea behind it is to build and maintain a single source of truth. So that developers can be confident that they are working on an integrated whole.

Software testing and error detection are essential elements of CI/CD. It also guarantees that deployments are done in a controlled and consistent manner. It is especially important for the fintech industry. Since security and reliability here are paramount.

Continuous integration allows you to

• Test every change made to your code base.
• Automatically detect errors in your code and fix them before they affect the rest of your system.
• Avoid regressions when you make changes to your code base.
• Reduce the risk of human error.
• Achieve faster time-to-market.
• Improve the quality of your software.

It is an ideal way to ensure that new features are tested thoroughly before they are deployed.

Security measures

Security measures are critical for any organization dealing with sensitive data. Fintech companies must ensure that their software solutions meet stringent regulatory requirements.

These regulations may vary by country or region. But they generally require fintech companies to implement fintech security measures to prevent unauthorized access, data breaches, and other security threats.

To protect the funds of customers, financial institutions take several steps. These include:

• Making sure that clients' personal information is always protected.
• Ensuring transactions are completed securely.
• Implementing additional security measures such as multi-factor authentication and encryption.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the fintech cyber security measures companies can implement.

• Encryption. Encryption is the most basic form of cyber security. It is used to protect sensitive information. It is the process of converting data into a coded language. Thus, it can only be read by authorized parties. Encryption can be applied to files, emails, and other forms of communication.
• Access controls. Fintech companies should also implement access controls. It ensures that only authorized individuals can access sensitive data. Access controls can include user authentication and role-based access controls. As well as other security measures to limit access to sensitive data.
• Regular security assessments. Fintech companies should conduct regular security assessments to identify potential vulnerabilities. Thus, they can address these issues before they can be exploited by cybercriminals.
• Data backup and disaster recovery. Data backup and disaster recovery plans should be implemented. It is to ensure that fintech companies can recover from a data breach or other security incident.

Regulatory compliance

The financial industry is a tough one. Regulations, security measures, and compliance with fintech requirements are some of the most important concerns for fintech developers. Many countries have strict laws regarding data protection, privacy, and anti-money laundering policies.

Below are some tips for fintech companies to ensure compliance with AML (anti-money laundering) laws and KYC (Know Your Customer) requirements.

1. Keep up-to-date with regulatory changes. Fintech companies must be aware of any regulatory changes that may impact their business operations. They should also be familiar with the legal requirements for AML and KYC. As well as, how to implement them in their software development processes.
2. Conduct thorough risk assessments. Before developing fintech software, companies should conduct a risk assessment. It will help them identify potential risks associated with any fraudulent activities.
3. Implement proper customer due diligence (CDD). Know your customer rules that verify customers' identities and conduct ongoing monitoring. It is to detect any suspicious activities.
4. Monitor transactions for suspicious activities. Fintech companies should monitor customer transactions for any suspicious activities. These may indicate money laundering or other fraudulent activities. This procedure may involve using machine learning algorithms and other advanced technologies to detect patterns in customer behavior.

In summary, fintech companies must prioritize regulatory compliance in their software development processes. It will ensure that they operate legally, ethically, and securely. All while protecting their customers' interests. Otherwise, they risk facing serious penalties.

Collaboration and communication

The best fintech software developers are not just programmers. They are also people who can work in collaboration with others. They understand the importance of collaboration and communication skills for building successful products.

Fintech software development is a collaborative process. So your team members must work well together. Team members will be able to collaborate more effectively if you break down silos and foster an open environment.

Collaborating with end-users, stakeholders, and project managers is essential for developers to understand the specific needs of their customers. Developers should listen carefully to their feedback. They need to understand users’ pain points and ensure that the software addresses their specific needs.

By the way, CI/CD encourages collaboration among developers. It is done by providing a shared code repository and automated feedback on changes. This enables developers to work together more effectively. And identify and fix problems more quickly. Regular status updates, progress reports, and team meetings can help to keep everyone informed. It will also ensure that the project stays on track.

Scalability

Fintech software should be designed to handle increasing volumes of data and users as the business grows. As the volume of data grows, it becomes more difficult to manage and process. A scalable system handles the growing data volume without sacrificing performance or security.

A fintech software platform that cannot scale is an albatross around your neck. It will be slow and inefficient, costing you time and money.

As businesses grow, companies need to adapt their systems to handle larger amounts of data and more transactions per second. The system should also be able to easily adjust to accommodate new features. It can be additional payment methods or different currencies.

To achieve scalability, fintech software development should incorporate the following practices:

• Use a microservices architecture. It allows fintech applications to break down their functionality into small, independent services. Then they can be scaled independently as needed.
• Utilize cloud services. Cloud services allow fintech businesses to scale their applications quickly and easily. It’s possible by adding or removing resources as needed.
• Implement horizontal scaling. Horizontal scaling involves adding more instances of a service to handle the increased load. This approach allows fintech apps to scale up to handle sudden spikes in traffic.
• Use Caching: Caching involves storing data and code on a dedicated cache server. This can reduce the load on backend services by reducing the number of requests they receive.

Leveraging cloud-based solutions can help to scale the software platform up or down. We know about fintech solutions firsthand, let’s look into one of our development cases.

Stfalcon’s Experience in FinTech

SDK for a crypto wallet

A client came to Stfalcon for an SDK for a crypto wallet development. Our team chose Kotlin multiplatform because one of the tasks was to combine business logic and use the same code base on different platforms. Kotlin multiplatform technology allowed us to use the same business models, processes, queries, internal data processing, and encryption on all target platforms.

Read the full case study

We developed interfaces to interact with UI applications. The development was realized in several stages:

We studied KMM and security requirements, and after that our developers formed and implemented contracts and API requests using apiary.io. Next, a common SDK architecture was crafted.

Then followed application architecture development and application SDK integration. Lastly, SDK edits were implemented for iOS to work correctly.

The most difficult step was the integration of the SDK on the platform. Different Kotlin versions follow diverse principles of generating and exporting the iOS module. So, we had to create 2 modules for different architectures. The final solution was a hybrid project of iOS and Android applications, which used the internal dependencies of both projects from platforms.

Conclusion

Fintech companies are gaining ground in several fields. It makes it increasingly important for financial services organizations to understand how to leverage technology effectively.

This is inherently difficult as new technologies are constantly being developed. However, some practices can help you mitigate fintech software development risks. Stfalcon’s team can help you at every stage and step of your development, in:

• implementing robust security protocols;
• ensuring compliance with relevant regulations and standards;
• prioritizing user experience and feedback;
• employing agile methodologies for efficient development;
• testing and refining the software to identify and address any issues.

Following these practices, our fintech devs can create from scratch custom software solutions that meet your needs, maintaining the highest levels of security and reliability. All you need is to contact us right now to discuss your project in more detail.