The digital movement at banks is truly up and running in 2019. Banks are focusing on moving digital and becoming mobile friendly. Some traditional banks are setting shop in Europe, while others are closing down due to their inability to monetize their customer base. The term “neo-banks” or “challenger banks” as some call it, has suddenly been trending for days together. It’s no coincidence or a barrel of news concerning the creation of a neo-bank. While the latter has been happening, it’s the customer’s latest demand for a 100% digital, mobile friendly, user friendly bank that has got neo-bank to the hilt of latest trends. While neo-banks have been trending, news regarding digital transformation at traditional banks have always found their name at the top of the list. However, with such digital transformation at banks, is the performance or efficiency of the digital transformation showing out?

While it’s true that without a complete digital transformation – both front end and back end – banks cannot reach out to give customer’s what they exactly want, it also exists if banks can’t incorporate adequate testing measures for their digital banking solution. In order words, having the best technology stack is not enough anymore, nor is having a proper digital transformation approach if digital assurance practices aren’t adopted.

The Focus Points

So, it’s been understood that Digital Assurance is as vital as the technology stack for a digital bank. Now what? – Well there are several focus points while banks figure out their digital assurance approach. Banks need to test across channel functionality, performance, usability, compatibility and security.

When concerning digital channels, Functionality testing can be focused on following a use-case approach. Through mobile channels, banking applications would have several applications which would require a real time comparison between the expected results and the obtained results. The application’s lifecycle can be monitored and analyzed through several different occurrences. Also what could be tested is the interoperability within the application.

Cyber-crimes in the last year alone accounted to 1 trillion USD in losses for banks. In such an age where cyber-crimes have increased with the influence of digital banking, Security testing across digital channels is extremely important. It is important to take note of whether the banking application is storing data and how are the privacy settings for the application. It also makes sense to note user limitations and privileges along with tracking history.

In terms of Compatibility and Usability testing, banks need to ensure an out-of-the-box testing solution as customer experience has always been rated as the top priority or concern among banks. The usability and compatibility of the banking dashboard is always the first thing that’s noticed by the customer.

So what’s the Approach?

Digital Banking has to deal with several challenges while testing their applications. One reason is the difficulty level in isolating failures to a particular service. Each failure could have several underlying factors which are causing failures in other functionalities. Secondly, banks deal with tons of complex data, which might be in structured or unstructured form. These sets of data shouldn’t be affected by any malware. Thirdly, banks deal with real time transactions across their digital dashboards and applications. Hence, the approach to digital assurance needs to ensure that load and stress tests are performed so as to avoid crashing of servers or the banking application as a whole.

The Situation is Critical for Digital Banks – Not Fake News

“Up to half of the world’s banks will disappear through the cracks opened up by the digital disruption of the industry”

Francisco Gonzalez, BBVA Chairman and CEO

How to Measure Success – Final Thoughts

The approaches taken by your bank will be vital for the bank to stay in the top half. Banks deal with complex technologies and complex datasets. Customers want exotic customer experiences, real time updates, and heightened security measures, all while countering phishing, vishing and smishing. Banks which can create a 360° testing approach, which encompasses all the factors can measure success effectively as it would lead to much less performance failures, in an industry where customers wouldn’t ever tolerate such failures. Solutions like AFTA could prove to be the difference between banking successes and failures.

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