SQA2 Case Studies: Finance Tech
Client Background
Our client, a prominent banking and financial services institution, offers a comprehensive suite of financial products, including savings accounts, deposit accounts, loan accounts, and the secure transportation of funds through wire transfers and internal transactions. With an unwavering commitment to delivering seamless and secure financial operations, the client sought to optimize their QA processes to ensure smooth, error-free financial transactions across their digital banking platforms.
Project Overview
The client’s primary objective was to improve their QA capabilities to guarantee that customers could reliably make loan payments and money transfers across accounts without interruptions. The project emphasized ensuring accuracy in the validation of large data payloads across multiple systems, streamlining testing processes, and meeting compliance standards critical to the banking industry, including those related to data security and transaction integrity.
Challenges
Before engaging our services, the client faced several QA challenges that affected the performance and reliability of their financial software platforms:
- Inefficient Manual Testing: The client’s QA team relied heavily on manual testing due to limited technical expertise. This resulted in extended execution times for end-to-end testing, with a single test taking up to 40 minutes. The complexity of validating large data payloads across interconnected financial systems further compounded these inefficiencies.
- Inadequate Test Data Management: API testing relied on recycled or duplicate data, requiring manual updates for key variables like dates and access tokens. These manual interventions introduced inefficiencies and increased the risk of errors, posing challenges for data consistency in financial transaction testing.
- Fragile Assertion-Based Systems: The existing QA system often crashed during data validation failures, halting subsequent testing and delaying the overall testing process. This posed a significant challenge for transaction validation workflows.
- Production Bugs and Complacency: The client’s QA team displayed a “well, it happens” attitude toward financial transaction errors in production. This complacency led to leadership concerns, particularly with the low number of bugs identified during testing in lower environments, despite substantial manual testing efforts.
These challenges hindered the client’s ability to ensure the quality and reliability of their banking software systems, raising the risk of disruptions in critical services like fund transfers, loan repayments, and account management.
Solutions Implemented
To address the unique QA challenges of the banking and financial services sector, we introduced several targeted solutions:
- Automation Implementation: Leveraging the client’s custom automation framework built with Python and Selenium, we fully automated the end-to-end testing process for financial transactions. This reduced execution time from 40 minutes to just 2 minutes per test case. Additionally, we implemented API testing automation using JMeter and Postman. By generating custom and randomized request payloads, including transaction data, and validating them with post-request scripts, we eliminated manual updates and ensured that banking workflows were tested with accurate, dynamic data.
Our ability to either work within existing automation frameworks or create tailored solutions from scratch demonstrated flexibility in addressing the specific needs of financial technology platforms.
- Advanced Data Validation for Financial Transactions: Enhancements to the client’s automation framework included methods to generate, parse, and validate transaction data across banking systems. We dynamically generated JSON transaction data, tested file adapters using CSV files, and employed Google BigQuery for SQL-based data validation. These improvements enhanced the accuracy and reliability of financial data reconciliation and reporting.
- Organized Test Case Repository: To streamline testing workflows, we restructured the repository to organize test cases by transaction type, API name, and functionality. This improved efficiency in managing and executing tests for specific financial operations, including loan payments, deposits, and wire transfers.
- Shift-Left Testing Methodology: By adopting our QA 2.0 shift-left approach, we participated in product grooming sessions early in the development process. This enabled us to review and refine requirements related to financial transaction flows, ensuring technical alignment and identifying potential issues early to reduce defects during later stages.
- Leveraging the SQaaS Model: Our Software Quality as a Service (SQaaS) model provided the client with US-based QA resources at rates competitive with offshore services, delivering both cost savings and superior quality. The blended approach—one embedded team member complemented by our SQaaS team—enabled us to offload repetitive manual testing tasks while focusing on complex technical efforts like automation and data validation. The scalability of the SQaaS model allowed the client to adjust resources based on project needs, ensuring comprehensive testing coverage without overextending their budget.
Outcomes and Results
Our solutions delivered substantial improvements in the client’s QA processes and the overall performance of their financial software platforms:
- Increased Efficiency: Automation reduced the time required for end-to-end testing of banking transactions from 40 minutes to just 2 minutes per test case. Optimized data validation processes further accelerated testing cycles, enabling faster deployment of updates.
- Enhanced Test Coverage: By structuring the test case repository and employing advanced automation techniques, we achieved 100% automation coverage for end-to-end test cases in banking workflows. Automation accounted for 40% of the bugs identified during testing, highlighting its effectiveness in detecting issues that could impact financial transaction integrity.
- Improved Defect Identification: With our rigorous QA processes, the number of actionable defects reported increased significantly. No production bugs have been identified for over a year, a testament to the reliability of the banking transaction testing framework we implemented.
- Expanded Scope: Initially limited to testing loan payments, the project scope expanded to include savings accounts, deposit accounts, and wire transfers, reflecting the client’s growing confidence in our capabilities.
- Cost-Effectiveness and Flexibility: The SQaaS model provided the client with scalable, cost-effective QA services. By offering rates competitive with offshore providers while delivering higher-quality results, we achieved measurable cost savings without compromising on quality.
Our dedication to quality, coupled with innovative solutions, has made our work a benchmark for excellence within the client’s organization. Our QE lead regularly requests smoke testing for critical financial processes, underscoring the trust in our QA capabilities.
Client Satisfaction
The success of this project is reflected in the client’s long-term partnership with us, spanning multiple years. Since the beginning of our engagement, the client has significantly increased our involvement, expanding the team by over 150%. What began as a focus on loan payment testing has evolved into a comprehensive QA effort across their entire suite of financial services. This ongoing collaboration highlights the client’s trust in our ability to deliver consistent, high-quality results and adapt to their growing needs.
Conclusion
By automating the QA process and implementing a scalable, cost-effective solution tailored to the needs of the banking and financial services sector, we transformed the client’s ability to ensure reliable, secure, and efficient financial transactions. Our shift-left methodology identified potential issues early, preventing costly defects in production and enhancing the overall user experience.
The SQaaS model provided the flexibility to scale resources as needed, enabling the client to meet tight deadlines and expand their scope without increasing overhead costs. Through our expertise and commitment to quality, we helped the client maintain the highest standards for their financial services, strengthening their position in a competitive market.
Contact Us
Looking to transform your QA processes for banking platforms or financial technology solutions? Contact SQA² today to learn how our automation solutions, shift-left methodology, and flexible QA models can ensure your financial software meets the highest standards for reliability, security, and performance.
