By Rahul Chaudhari
The Indian Banking and Financial (BFSI) sector is on a digital tightrope walk. Innovation is the name of the game, with mobile wallets and neo-banks redefining financial experiences. But beneath the sleek interfaces lies a complex web of software development, riddled with challenges that threaten to delay progress. Cost, time, talent, and accuracy – these are the constant hurdles banks face in their software development sprints.
The Burden of Legacy and the Talent Crunch
One of the biggest roadblocks is the heterogeneity burden. Many banks still rely on core banking platforms from a bygone era of technology, making integration with modern applications a delicate dance. Such legacy environments are often rife with technical debt, making them brittle and expensive to maintain. Even minor code changes in these heterogeneous systems can have cascading effects, slowing down development cycles and increasing the risk of errors.
Further compounding the situation is the talent crunch. Finding skilled software developers, especially those with expertise in banking and financial regulations and security, is a constant battle. This scarce talent pool directly translates to longer development times and higher project costs. The demand for specialists in areas like security testing, performance testing, and compliance testing far outstrips supply.
The Accuracy Imperative and the Limits of Manual Testing
Accuracy is paramount when dealing with financial data. A single bug in a banking or financial application can have devastating consequences, both financial and reputational damages. Traditional manual testing methods, while crucial, are simply not thorough enough in today’s complex software landscape. Time constraints often lead to incomplete testing, creating a ticking time bomb for potential errors after launch. Manual testing suffers from inherent limitations, including subjectivity, repeatability issues, and inability to handle the growing complexity of modern applications.
The Test Automation Advantage
In this high-stakes environment, where users and customers are seeking “better experience every day” in their interaction with the applications via digital mediums, having test automation emerges as a potential game-changer. By automating repetitive testing tasks such as functional testing and regression testing, banks can free up valuable developer time and resources. Imagine a scenario where account opening processes (and many others) are no longer manually tested hundreds of times, but handled by automated process scripts that can run overnight, flagging potential errors with higher accuracy. This not only reduces the time and cost of testing but also allows for more frequent releases, accelerating the time-to-market and business opportunity loss.
The benefits extend beyond efficiency. Automation empowers banks to adhere to the ever-changing regulatory landscape to save precious time to market. Test scripts can be constantly updated to reflect new compliance requirements, ensuring software remains compliant with Know Your Customer (KYC) norms and other regulations. Additionally, with modern tools available today, 80% of the defects can be found and corrected during the Quality Assurance(QA) process itself, instead of in the User Acceptance Testing (UAT) time, a practice widely advocated by us for its ability to improve software quality and reduce time-to-market for their customers. Today, such tools offer Real AI and Real Automation, with added advantage of digital traceability in this complex regulated environment, thus making them the clear winner.
The Case for Embracing Automation
The Indian banking sector is starting to recognize the potential. All the leading banks in India and many upcoming ones are successfully implementing automated testing frameworks to achieve significant reductions in testing timelines. However, widespread adoption remains a challenge with the latest technologies prevalent in the market. Thus, most Banks and Financial Institutions are building partnerships to augment their in-house expertise to develop and maintain robust automation suites. This is where Scriptless Automated AI based Software Testing from specialist testing service providers like us can play a crucial role.
The Path Forward: Innovation, Security, Cost-Effectiveness, and Experience
By embracing Scriptless Automated AI based Software Testing, Indian banks and financial institutions can bridge the gap between innovation and stability. It is time to move away from the tightrope walk and step onto a path of faster, more secure, and cost-effective software development. The future of Indian BFSI sector is automated, and those who take the leap first will reap the rewards.
Investing in the Digital Transformation
Concerns around initial investment costs and the need for skilled personnel to manage automation tools are often cited as roadblocks. However, these hurdles can be overcome by partnering with the innovative product and service providers who are delivering such solutions to the customers. The Indian IT industry boasts a wealth of Global and Indian expertise in automation, and the initial investment can be quickly recouped with at least 60% cost and time reduction in testing time and bug fixing costs leading to significant financial benefits. The real savings are not just in cost of testing, but in value of deployment ahead of competition, potentially bug free!
The future of banking belongs to those who can innovate rapidly and deliver exceptional customer experiences. Scriptless Automated AI based Software Testing is not a silver bullet, but it is a powerful tool that can help Indian banks and financial institutions achieve the speed, agility, and accuracy needed to win the software development process and the automation sprints. By accelerating their adoption of automation, banks and financial institutions can ensure they stay ahead of the curve in the ever-evolving digital landscape.
Remember, context and content rules the digital experience of the customer and testing automation will remain as the key driver to achieve this ability for Indian BFSI Sector.
(The author is the Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Qualitia. Views are personal)