July 26, 2023

How to Develop a Personal Finance App in 2023

The rise of apps for personal finance is driven by the increasing demand for optimizing resources, tracking expenses, and achieving financial stability. With the advancements in technology, there is a wide range of fintech solutions available that offer advanced analytics, forecasting, and efficient management of high-level finances. These apps, including budget planners and investment platforms, empower users to effortlessly manage their bank accounts, credit cards, investments, and income, leveraging the power of technology for seamless financial management.

With the ongoing financial uncertainty and the looming recession, budgeting apps have gained significant popularity as a means to track expenses and save money. Recent studies indicate that the top 10 finance planning apps have witnessed a remarkable average increase of 56% in downloads over the past five years, making personal fintech app development a highly profitable venture.

An exemplary success story of personal finance app is Mint, which has emerged as the industry's go-to app. Initially starting as a simple investment tracker with limited features, Mint has evolved into an AI-powered financial counseling platform boasting a user base of 25 million. Its transformative journey highlights the immense potential and impact of personal finance apps in the fintech industry.

In today's app-driven world, a personal finance app serves as a money management application that helps individuals regulate and track their financial activities. It provides tools to set budgets, monitor expenses, and gain valuable insights into savings and expenditures.

Market Overview

When entering the app for the personal finance market, it's crucial to consider the existing competition. While your app's functionality may differ, your target audience and market segment will remain the same. Therefore, conducting comprehensive market research is essential before launching and designing your personal finance mobile application.

Here are some notable use cases:

• Mint: A popular personal finance app that offers free finance tracking.
• You Need a Budget: A top-rated app for debt payoff and budgeting, offering educational resources.
• Prism: An excellent app for bill payments, capable of syncing with numerous billers.
• Spendee: A preferred choice for managing shared expenses, such as household finances.
• EveryDollar: A comprehensive budgeting tool and expense tracker.
• PocketGuard: A user-friendly money management tool with a visually appealing interface.

In addition to these established market players, traditional banks have also entered the personal finance management sector. Many banking apps now include budgeting features, like the Alliant mobile banking app. This means there is both additional competition from banks and potential opportunities for partnerships or acquisitions.

Role of a Personal Finance App

The primary role of a personal finance app is to simplify financial management and enhance users' lives. These apps streamline the process of managing finances by offering features such as expense tracking, income calculation, budget planning, financial organization, data analysis, and insightful reports. They provide users with transparency regarding their income and spending habits, while also offering access to investment options, financial advice, insurance insights, and the ability to prepare for unexpected financial emergencies.

Types of Personal Finance Apps

Personal finance apps can be categorized into two types: simple and complex financial apps.

Simple Financial Apps

As the name suggests, simple personal financial apps require users to manually input their financial information and data. Users are responsible for adding their expenses and income, as well as categorizing each transaction.

These apps provide an easy way for users to track their expenses, plan investments, and create budgets.

Advantages:

• Minimal risk as no bank accounts need to be linked to the app.
• Cost-effective development process due to simple features.

Disadvantages:

• Higher potential for human error due to manual data entry.
• The time-consuming process is as users have to manually input data.

Complex Financial Apps

Complex financial apps are designed to automate the money management process for users. They allow users to link their bank accounts and cards for automatic data synchronization. Advanced tools retrieve the necessary information from the linked accounts.

Advantages:

• Comprehensive features and functions, offering a wide range of capabilities beyond basic financial tracking.
• Efficient and time-saving, as the app automates data updates and provides real-time information to users.

Disadvantages:

• Higher development costs compared to simple financial apps.
• It's important to consider the specific needs and preferences of users when choosing between simple and complex financial apps, as each type offers its own set of advantages and disadvantages.

Building a Personal Financial App

By following the steps below it is possible to create a successful personal financial app.

Discovery Phase

The discovery phase of the project is a crucial information-gathering process that provides a deep understanding of the industry, the client's business, and the target audience. Its primary purpose is to gather comprehensive details about the needs and create a separate document to provide a quotation to the customer. This phase helps scope and plan the project, ensuring the delivery of a cutting-edge custom software product. Underestimating the importance of the project discovery phase can hinder the development of state-of-the-art products.

Gaining insight into the motives, goals, and challenges of the users is essential. This understanding allows for the development of a product that addresses their needs effectively.

To create a successful product, it is crucial to understand the context in which it will be used. This includes factors such as the environment, user behavior, and other elements that influence product interaction.

The discovery phase of a project is an opportunity to generate fresh ideas and gain new perspectives on product development. By exploring various aspects of the client's business and the industry, innovative solutions can be identified.

Analyzing user expectations and their attitude toward the product is essential for creating a user-centric design. By understanding their preferences, pain points, and desires, the product can be tailored to meet their expectations effectively.

Prioritize Security

Security is of utmost importance for a personal finance app. Implement features such as two-factor authentication, session timeouts, careful handling of personal information, and compliance with industry standards like PCI DSS and GDPR.

Determine Key Features

Identify the essential features that every personal finance app should have. These may include easy and secure user account authorization, user profile management, income and expense tracking, and notifications for important events. Consider incorporating advanced features like goal setting, bank account integration, calculations, and detailed reports.

Select the Right Tech Stack

Choose the appropriate technology stack for your app development. Consider using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for the front end, along with relevant frameworks. For the backend, select programming languages like Ruby, Python, C++, or C#, and ensure your database can handle secure and efficient data processing. Integrate APIs and AI solutions as needed. Decide whether to build a native or cross-platform app based on your requirements.

Design a User-Friendly Experience

Focus on creating a convenient user experience (UX) design that makes money management easy. Use a simple user interface (UI) that prioritizes readability and clarity over unnecessary decorative elements. Design intuitive user flows, minimize information overload, and provide a smooth onboarding process for new users.

Test Rigorously

Thoroughly test your app before launch, considering the sensitive nature of financial transactions. Conduct security testing to identify vulnerabilities, ensure data integrity through comprehensive database testing, evaluate usability for a friendly user experience, perform functional testing to validate integrations, and conduct performance testing to check the app's scalability and load-handling capabilities. Involve finance experts in the testing process.

Launch and Market Your App

After addressing any issues found during testing, prepare a comprehensive marketing strategy for your app launch. This involves more than just submitting your app to app stores. Plan promotional activities, create compelling app store listings, and consider targeted advertising to reach your intended audience.

Our Experience

Interface Design for Credit Agricole payment kiosks

Our team was assigned to develop an interface design for Credit Agricole payment kiosks.

SDK for a crypto wallet

Stfalcon's task was to develop an SDK for Android and iOS mobile platforms, utilizing Kotlin Multiplatform, for a crypto wallet.

Bottom Line

With advancements in technology, there are abundant opportunities for leveraging high-level financial optimization, advanced analytics, and forecasting. From budget planners to investment apps, fintech solutions powered by technology assist users in effortlessly managing their bank accounts, credit cards, investments, and income. These apps enable individuals to take control of their finances with ease and convenience.

By collaborating with an experienced fintech development company, you can benefit from a well-established process and a highly skilled team that ensures the timely completion of all essential tasks. This partnership relieves you of the burden of development and management, guaranteeing that the solution aligns with fintech industry regulations and your business objectives.

At Stfalcon, we are dedicated to offering our clients the best technologies, tools, and practices to bring their ideas to life. From crafting a unique value proposition to providing support throughout the development process, including deployment and post-release assistance, we are here to help you. Feel free to reach out to us, complimentary consultation is available.