Client Overview

The client is a 30-branch bank with over a 50-year history,  over $40B in equity and over 5,000 employees.  Services include retail banking, corporate banking, capital market, credit cards, loans and mortgages.

Business Needs and Objectives

The client decided to improve its mobile app for many services by adding new functions and operations, as well as providing a new user interface.   The new app is native and operates on iOS and Android.

The changes focused on improving customer experience, aligning to the global banking standard and engaging younger crowds.  A strategic testing plan was needed to address technical challenges as well as business logic.

The Qualitest Solution

Device fragmentation required creation of an internal lab due to the bank’s security constraints.  The initial approach based on manual testing exposed many defects.  However, we determined that mobile test automation would be an improvement because:

  • SDLC is threatened by a test case count that will quickly inflate due to: frequent iOS and Android updates, device fragmentation of Android, and improved test coverage
  • Automation cuts testing time and personnel requirements
  • Automation leverages resources by running the test 24×7
  • Automation saves time and money by reusing the scripts
  • Test automation catches bugs earlier in the SDLC, reducing expenses and working hours on the developer side
  • Test automation is more reliable and quicker than running boring repetitive standardized tests which cannot be skipped, ever, but may cause errors when manually tested

Execution

Appium (with its compatibility between Android versions) with C# was chosen as the automation solution, which benefits from being open source.  Appium allows leveraging Selenium’s capabilities on the web and avoids vendor dependency.  The combination is easy to maintain, has strong community support which helps cut development time, and allows code ownership independent from external resources.  Test levels contain system and integration.  Test types include E2E functional testing and validation vs. the web site.

Key Benefits

  • Time and costs enjoyed a savings of around 40% during the testing effort
  • Test coverage and testing quality were significantly increased
  • Regression testing optimization cut execution time by around 40%, a savings that will continue to be realized every time that regression testing is needed in the future, while utilizing the significantly improved coverage
  • Time to market and response factor were significantly improved on the business side