The industry domain of financial services is going through a radical change because of burgeoning technological progression and digitalization. As is evident, the banking industry significantly depends on products that are technology-enabled. Also, such banking-centric products need to have absolute stability and efficient performance to make sure great user experience is perceived.
Furthermore, every activity that the banking software performs must be able to run in a smooth, continuous fashion, besides ensuring flawless, secure transactions.
What is banking domain testing?
It is basically a software testing mechanism utilized to make sure the functionality, security, and performance aspects of a banking application are thoroughly verified prior to making them live and going commercial.
The primary objective to test banking applications is to set the seal on the fact that all functionalities and activities of typical banking software are running smoothly, devoid of any errors, and offering absolute security.
As a matter of fact, banking applications have a direct dealing with confidential financial and customer-related data. So it is important that all activities done by the underlying software run smoothly and continuously, with no apparent errors from one part to the next.
Any common banking software performs a variety of functions. These include the following.
- To transfer and deposit funds
- To check account balance
- To check financial transaction history
- To check fund withdrawal status and history
If pursued from a reputed institute, software testing skills in banking guarantee the above-mentioned activities are performed efficiently and safeguarded from potential hackers or events of cyber-attack.
Why is software testing compulsory for banking applications?
Regulation and compliance
Globally, more focus is being put to ensure absolute business transparency. It is important that businesses adhere to the terms of specific regulatory compliance. Therefore, robust software testing processes are needed to satisfy the demands of several API terms and conditions associated with open banking.
Digital convergence
Through the digitalization of banking services, a dramatic change in this business domain is brought about. The change is more noticeably observed with the emergence and far-reaching use of mobile devices such as tablets, smartphones, and other IoT-based devices.
With digital payment mechanisms in place, transactions have been made easier. Nowadays, consumers are more inclined to pay via paperless currencies for which all-encompassing software testing is compulsory.
Improved user experience
In this day and age, customer expectations are varying constantly. Users are technologically savvier. And user experience (UX) is critical to the success of any business. More focus is put on several application-specific aspects. These include:
- The ease of use
- Having a great, easy-to-grasp user interface (UI)
- Stability in performance at higher loads
achieve all these intricacies, appropriate usability testing needs to be done. Moreover, software testing skills in banking to check end-to-end performance is also essential to bring about superlative performance and the best user experience (UX).
Stable, unbroken transactions
All banking apps need integrations of stable payment gateways. This is because of ensuring customers are able to carry out secure and successful transactions. Also, to incorporate payment gateways and vetting their efficacy software testing is necessary.
Security and privacy
These are the most important facets of every banking application. Security and privacy are paramount to safeguard confidential customer information and see to it safe, reliable transactions are made.
With incidents of cybercrimes getting rampant, it is imperative to carry out meticulous security testing for all banking applications and come up with a protective environment to execute customer transactions.
The advent of novel technologies
Nowadays, reaching more and more customers is nothing but plain-sailing, thanks to innovative technologies making an impression. With the inclusion of numerous browser-based applications and voice recognition apps, mobile banking has undergone tremendous evolution. Such apps need thorough testing before they are made live and available in the market to deliver flawless performance.
Typical characteristics of a banking software application
Ahead of starting the software testing phase, it is of value to know and understand the standard features that any common banking application is expected to offer. The main purpose lies in gearing up the testing efforts to pull off each of these characteristics.
Any mainstream banking apps should fulfill each of the following characteristics, as discussed below.
- To support numerous co-occurring user sessions
- To incorporate several other applications such as trading accounts, utility bill payments, credit card payments, and more
- To carry out the processing of quick and safe transactions
- To make room for a huge storage system
- To do prompt troubleshooting of customer issues
- To do extensive and regular audits
- To manage complex business workflow mechanisms
- To provide uniform support to users latched on to different platforms like Windows, UNIX, Linux, and Mac OsX
- To offer support to users operating from various other locations
- To provide support to users speaking multiple languages
- To come up with full support to users pertaining to different payment mechanisms such as VISA, MasterCard, AMEX, etc.
- To put forward extensive support to many service sectors such as loans, credit cards, retail banking, and more
- To render guaranteed disaster management techniques
Phases and skills required to test banking applications
Different testing stages and skill requirements are necessary to authenticate the performance of banking applications. These include the following.
Requirement analysis
This phase is usually carried out by a business analyst. The distinct needs which the specific banking application is in want of are collected and documented.
Requirement review
This phase is conducted by business analysts, quality analysts, and software development team lead. The document prepared through the requirement analysis phase is analyzed in depth. It is cross-verified to make certain the workflow is not impacted adversely.
Business requirements documentation
Here, the role of quality analysts comes into the scene. They prepare the documents related to unique business requirements once a proper review is conducted in the previous phase.
Database Testing
Considered as the most crucial part of the software testing skills in the banking application, the phase is performed to see if the following activities are properly executed.
- Checking data integrity
- Monitoring data loading
- Monitoring data migration
- Verifying stored procedures
- Validating functions
- Testing rules
Integration testing
During this phase, all integral components that have already been developed are made to go through final integration and validation.
Functional testing
In the course of this phase, typical activities relevant to software testing are carried out. These activities take in the following.
- Test case preparation
- Test case review
- Test case execution
Security testing
This phase warrants that the application software is bereft of any flaws. In the course of preparing for testing, the quality assurance (QA) team calls for the inclusion of both positive and negative test scenarios. The negative scenarios allow the QA team to do a mock break-in and report the flaw, if any detected, much in advance. This ensures the inaccessibility of the application by unauthorized individuals.
In order to circumvent events of hacking, the teams offering software testing skills in banking also need to put multi-layer access validation such as an OTP into effect. Security testing demands the intervention of robust automation tools, for example, HPWebInspect and IBM AppScan. In addition, a few manual testing tools such as HTTP watch, Proxy Sniffer, and Paros proxy are employed.
Usability testing
This phase makes sure differently-abled people gain competence in using the system in the same way as normal people. For instance, facilities in ATMs with Braille features for visually challenged users or people having impaired hearing are contrived.
User acceptance testing
This is the final testing phase. It is usually executed by end-users to corroborate application compliance in a real-world scenario.
Conclusion
If truth be told, banking applications play a pivotal role in everyday life as they have direct links with customers. They involve the execution of an innumerable number of daily transactions. So, software testing skills in banking for developing applications are critical.
So, the different methods of banking application software testing should be adopted to see to it, the applications so developed are error-free, high-yielding, and fully operational. Thus setting up partnerships with QA experts will help take maximum advantage to scrutinize banking applications and successfully launch them. You can learn software engineering online and acquire all the aforementioned skills to enter the banking sector as a software professional.