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The trend is clear: Consumers like having their finances at their fingertips. Two out of five banking consumers are now digital-only. By 2025, the number of digital-only users is projected to rise from almost 30 million to over 53 million.  

Of the digital channels, mobile is the top choice:   

  • A reported 87% of adult US mobile banking users say mobile is the channel they prefer.   
  • Two-thirds of US retail bank customers used their bank’s mobile app in 2021.  

The banking and financial services digital experience has become crucial to customer retention and new customer acquisition. In fact, 40% of consumers say it is the most important factor in choosing a bank.  

What they want: Speedy, simple, seamless and secure

As much as they love digital, consumers don’t always love their digital experience. Many are unsatisfied, often because their experiences don’t measure up in these areas:    

  • Speed: Routine digital transactions that require too many steps or take more than three minutes can frustrate consumers enough to end the transaction–and take their business elsewhere for good.   
  • Simplicity: Overly elaborate, complicated design; unclear language or financial jargon; and a nonintuitive, confusing UI will not attract or keep customers. Consumers want simple, at-a-glance understanding and accessibility.    
  • Smooth Omnichannel Performance: Consumers demand a seamless, always-on, 24/7 performance without a hiccup of interruption. A slow, clumsy cross-device or cross-platform experience will chase them away. 
  • Security: Many users lack trust in their apps’ data security measures to provide adequate protection for their money and their sensitive data.   

These issues represent an opportunity for BFS companies to improve on their competition, but they’re just the beginning. The greater competitive edge lies in delivering enhanced experiences. Digital banking customers are demanding advanced features such as hyper-personalization, proactive guidance and the capability to perform complex tasks online. Mobile banking customers, especially those in the 18-24 (Gen Z) age group, are setting an even higher bar.    

Adding new features requires exhaustive testing and multiple test case scenarios. Manual testing is too costly and time-consuming to handle that kind of volume without quality or security compromise. Test automation is the solution—as long as it’s done right.   

Set the stage for success

There are numerous obstacles to success in test automation projects, which is why 60 percent of them fail. Choosing a quality team with special expertise and implementing the right automation framework and tooling will point your project toward success. Here’s what to look for.  

  • Deep Domain Knowledge: Banking applications are complex. They tap into a massive amount of sensitive data, and they need to comply with constantly changing laws and regulations, such as the Open Banking Regulations (PSD2-European Union), as well as changes in the tax structure. Quality teams need proven expertise with Big Data, security, banking and finance regulations and a comprehensive, up-to-date knowledge of how traditional and emerging banking, fintech and financial services operate and what they need.    
  • Automation Readiness Strategy: Successful test automation teams start by meeting financial services companies where they are in their automation journey. A thorough assessment of your current state, your systems and your goals is an essential first step to determine coverage and prioritization of the features you need to reach your target market segments, align with your business processes and address your business goals.
  • Extensive Testing Expertise: Digital customers want a high-performing, seamless, secure experience on any browser, device or platform. To deliver, testers need expertise in a full complement of testing types: Functional, Compatibility, Usability, Performance and Security. They also need skills in integrating multiple complex systems, including legacy and external, third-party platforms and APIs.
  • The Right Framework: Once a test automation plan has been created, a lightweight web and mobile automation framework that is scalable and flexible to future needs, aligns with your business goals and integrates easily with build tools is essential to optimize your automation.     

Fail fast, improve continuously

Test automation will enable changes and new features to be released into production faster so you can identify problems and fix them quickly, resulting in a continuous cycle of customer-pleasing improvements and enhancements. Overall, projects can realize up to 60X faster automation, 4X more deployments, and 20% improvement in median test velocity. Reduced testing costs and improved productivity are other valuable benefits.  

Research shows that customers with good experiences will stay longer and spend more – as much as 140 percent more than customers with a bad experience. Investing in the right quality and test automation solutions and services will quickly pay for itself, and then some.   

How we can help you

Qualitest is partnering with Sauce Labs to offer solutions that leverage our combined expertise in test automation, continuous testing and quality engineering for banking & financial services companies. Speak with an expert to learn how a customized test automation solution can enhance your customers’ digital experience and your company’s digital confidence.  

 

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