Interested in building a Fintech App?

This is a huge market that is growing by leaps and bounds and is now quickly branching
out into cloud-based PaaS, SaaS, and BaaS offerings.

If you are still wondering whether the market for FinTech mobile apps is rewarding
enough to build one, then you can put your doubts to rest. Take a look at the following:

 A 2019 report states that the adoption of finance apps has increased by 354%
over the past 5 years. Read “Mobile finance apps | Trends & benchmarks” to
learn more about this.

 This report also states that such apps saw a significant rise in the number of
user-sessions.

 Most smartphone users use a FinTech mobile app. This report states that “63%
of smartphone users have at least one financial app” and shows that two-thirds of
American smartphone users use such an app.

These figures reflect how personal finances such as banking services, mobile
payments, financial advice, money management such as budgets and overdraft
applications, etc., are increasingly being managed via user-friendly mobile applications.

Even financial institutions such as traditional banks are increasingly adopting any new
financial technology that can help improve their customer service. Many of these
innovations are coming from fintech companies that are quickly reshaping the financial
services ecosystem.

Examples include Stripe, Paypal, Venmo, Revolut, Chime, Acorns, Robo, Robinhood,
and blockchain Fintechs such as Coinbase, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin.

Given the threat that the traditional financial industry faces if it fails to keep up with the
latest developments, it is unsurprising that it is one of the biggest investors in fintech
solutions such as mobile banking apps, artificial intelligence-driven stock market trading
solutions, machine learning chatbots, international payment services, and other digital
payments technologies.

An example of a good FinTech app

Let’s review an example of a FinTech app to understand what you should offer. Mint is a
good example, and it’s from Intuit, the company behind popular apps like TurboTax and
QuickBooks.
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Mint is available via a web browser such as Chrome, Android, and iOS. It offers the
following features:

 You can manage all aspects of your finances in one app.

 The app enables end-users to easily track bills and account balances.

 It shows you the payments due along with due dates. You can avoid late fees
and penalties since Mint gives you reminders.

 Mint offers tips for budgeting and saving money.

 Users can create their budgets using Mint.

 The app informs users about their credit score and how to improve it.

 Mint has industry-standard security features including multi-factor authentication.

 You can sync the Mint mobile app with its web app easily.

 The app has a push notifications functionality.

Building a FinTech mobile app

You need to meticulously plan and execute a software development project to build a
FinTech mobile app. Such a project involves the following steps:

1. Choose the right project methodology

Hire a competent project manager (PM), a capable architect, and a team of business
analysts knowledgeable in the FinTech sector. You will likely launch a “Minimum Viable
Product” (MVP) first, subsequently, you will enhance the app based on client-side
market feedback.

Agile is the right methodology for such projects. It supports iterative development, which
makes it suitable here, as I have explained in “Waterfall vs Agile: Which methodology is
right for your project”.
2. Define the scope of the MVP and the overall app
You ought to methodically define the features to include in the MVP as well as the
overall app. Take the following steps for this:

 Define your market with the help of market research, moreover, research your
business idea meticulously.

 With the help of discovery sessions, identify which features you should offer.

 Prioritize these features using tools like “Pain and gain map”, prioritization matrix,
etc.

I have explained these steps in my tutorial on “5 tips to create a sleek MVP”.

I recommend that you define the MVP scope as follows:

 Offer a web, an Android, an iOS app, and possibly a Microsoft Windows app or a
hybrid app.

 Include the features that Mint has as well as any other of the latest mobile and
web technologies.

 Support English-speaking users and any other languages your research

indicated worth investing in.

3. Formulate an effective development approach

Plan for the success of the project, therefore, formulate an effective development
approach. I recommend that you include the following building blocks in this approach:

 Use managed cloud services platforms like “Platform-as-a-Service” (PaaS) and

“Mobile-Backend-as-a-Service” (MBaaS) smartly. This way, you can concentrate
on design and development, without getting bogged down with software
development infrastructure management.

 Develop native Android and iOS apps since they deliver the best user
experience.

 Decide on an appropriate architecture pattern.

 Design and develop “Application Programming Interfaces” (APIs) to implement

your core features, which helps the front-end to access the backend of your
application consistently.

 Use 3rd party APIs for non-core features like push notifications.

 Focus on application security and API security.

  Utilize appropriate tools, frameworks, and guidelines for development.

 Use a mobile device lab on the cloud to enhance your test automation.

I have elaborated on the importance of this approach in “What is the best development
approach to guarantee the success of your app?”.

You should design and develop your app keeping the “app internationalization”
guidelines in mind, which will help you to support more languages in the future. Follow
best practices like keeping the code separate from the content, and learn more about
these best practices in “The ultimate guide to mobile app internationalization”.

4. Choose the right managed cloud services platforms

You can boost your web app development efforts by using a PaaS platform like AWS
Elastic Beanstalk. PaaS platforms offer many advantages, e.g.:

 A PaaS provider manages the cloud infrastructure, networking, operating system,

middleware, and runtime environment. You focus on designing and coding.

 You can easily integrate APIs when using a PaaS platform, moreover, you can
add services like databases.

 Prominent PaaS platforms offer matured DevOps tools, moreover, they have
auto-scaling solutions.

Read our guide “10 top PaaS providers for 2020” for more insights.

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Sign up for AWS Amplify, i.e., the MBaaS offering from AWS, using the same AWS
account. This helps with your mobile app development in the following ways:

 Amplify manages the cloud infrastructure, persistent storage, etc., therefore, you
don’t need to build and manage the mobile backend.

 Integrating APIs is easier with Amplify, moreover, you can easily implement
features like user management and push notifications.
  You will be able to scale your mobile app easily when you use an MBaaS
platform like Amplify.

I have explained the advantages of MBaaS platforms in “How to choose the best Mobile
Backend as a Service (MBaaS)?”.

5. Form the project team

It’s time to hire developers! Consult our guide “How to find a good software developer”,
and onboard the following roles to form a complete project team:

 UI designers;

 Web developers with Node.js skills;

 Android developers with Java skills;

 iOS developers with experience in the Swift language;

 Testers;

 DevOps engineers.

Developing a FinTech app can be complex since the financial services industry is
heavily regulated. You should onboard field expert development teams. Such teams
work cohesively, as I had explained in “Freelance app development team vs. field
expert software development teams”.

6. Organize the team for productivity and collaboration

I recommend that you organize the team as one or more “Scrum teams” since this will
foster collaborations. As I have explained in “How to build a Scrum development
team?”, scrum teams are important for the “Scrum” technique, which helps to improve
the productivity of Agile teams.

Scrum teams have the following characteristics:

 The PM acts as the “Scrum master” and forms cross-functional teams, and these
are small teams where developers and testers work together.

 A “Product owner” provides the requirements in a document named the “Product

Backlog”, and the team estimates them. The team works with the business
stakeholders to schedule them in “Sprints”, i.e., iterations.

 The team conducts “Daily stand-up meetings” to track the project status, and it
demonstrates the app in a “Sprint review meeting”.
  Scrum teams also conduct lessons-learned exercises, which are called “Sprint
retrospective meetings”.

You should use a modern PM tool like Trello to manage the project.

7. Design and build APIs for the core functionalities

Let’s talk about the core features like tracking bills and accounts, payments, budgeting,
etc. If you already have an existing business where you offer these features, then you
could use your existing capabilities. You need to build these capabilities if yours is a
new business.

Either way, you should design and build APIs to facilitate streamlined and consistent
access to the backend from the front-end. I recommend that you build RESTful APIs,
which involves the following:

 Utilize the managed cloud services you have already bought to host the API
backend.

 Use an effective tool like Postman to develop and test the API.

 Document the API using a tool like Swagger.

 Secure your APIs using techniques like authentication, data encryption, etc.

 Effectively manage development, staging, and production environments for the

APIs.

 Use robust database solutions like PostgreSQL, MongoDB, etc. for developing
the APIs.

 Design URL paths effectively.

 Create effective rules for API requests and responses.

Our guide “How to build RESTful API for your mobile app?” can help you to design and
develop RESTful APIs.

8. Plan to secure the app and APIs

Security is key to the success of a FinTech app, therefore, you need to proactively
mitigate application security risks. The top application security risks are as follows:

 Injection;

 Broken authentication;
  Sensitive data exposure;

 XML external entities (XXE);

 Broken access control;

 Security misconfiguration;

 Cross-site scripting (XSS);

 Insecure deserialization;

 Using components with known vulnerabilities;

 Insufficient logging and monitoring.

The “Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) top 10 application security risks
– 2017” report can help you to mitigate these risks.

Secure the APIs you design and develop by the following means:

 Established trusted identities and use authentication tokens.

 Incorporate industry-standard digital signatures and data encryption techniques.

 Use quotas, throttling, and gateways.

Read “What is API security?” for more insights.

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9. Use a 3rd party bulk-SMS API solution to implement the push

notifications feature
Given that push notifications isn’t a core feature in this app, I recommend that you use a
3rd party API solution to implement it. Twilio is a robust choice, and you should use its
“Programmable SMS” offering.

Read “Messaging services and Copilot” to learn how to implement it in your app. Check
out the Twilio pricing plans before you buy it.
10. Sign-up for a mobile device lab on the cloud for testing
You need to make your mobile app work with all devices, therefore, you need to test it
against a wide range of mobile devices. This requires a mobile device lab on the cloud,
therefore, I recommend that you sign up with Experitest.

You can sign-up for the following Experitest offerings:

 Its mobile device & browser lab on the cloud, which has over 2,000 device-
browser combinations;

 Its SeeTest Reporter, which provides excellent test reports and analytics.

11. Develop the web app

You need to take the following steps to develop the web app:

 Carefully consider the type and requirements of your web application. Many
companies have found Progressive Web Apps PWA are a bridge between mobile
web applications and native apps to be faster and more suitable than
conventional web apps.

 Design an effective user interface (UI) that takes into mind all the web pages you
plan designs you will publish by following this tutorial guidance in “User interface
design guidelines: 10 rules of thumb”.

 Use js to code the web app since this open-source runtime environment is
suitable for developing performant and scalable web apps.

 Tools such as Github, Ajax, CSS, ASP.Net, PHP, Python, JavaScript, cloud
software development services, etc., are designed to help make the process
easier and more efficient. Use them!

 You can use Eclipse, the popular IDE for coding, however, you should also
use Nodeclipse, a Node.js plugin for Eclipse.

 Integrate your APIs as well as the Twilio programmable SMS API.

 Test your app, and deploy it on Elastic Beanstalk. This is a reliable web server
environment that offers great server-side scalability. You can read “Deploying
Node.js applications to AWS Elastic Beanstalk” for guidance.

12. Design, code, test, and deploy the Android app

Developing the proposed Android app involves the following:
  You should design the UI for the Android app in line with the “Material Design”
guidelines.

 Code the Android app using Java, and use Android Studio as the IDE.

 Integrate your own APIs and Twilio APIs in your code.

 Use Espresso and the Experitest mobile device lab to test the app.

 Publish it to Google Play, by following the instructions in “Publish your app”.

13. Develop the iOS app

Your steps to develop the proposed iOS app are as follows:

 Follow the “Human Interface Guidelines” to design an effective UI.

 Use Swift, the powerful language championed by Apple to code the iOS app.

 Xcode is the preferred IDE for developing apps for Apple platforms, and you
should use it.

 Integrate the APIs you have developed for your app, moreover, integrate the
Twilio API.

 Test the app using XCTest and the Experitest mobile device lab. Be sure your
application server delivers ample speeds during these tests.

 Read “Submit your apps to the App Store”, and use the instructions therein to
publish the app to the Apple App Store.

Planning to launch your FinTech mobile app?

FinTech payment apps have a growing market, however, your app must have a
competitive edge to do well in this market. You will need to hire remote developers to
build your FinTech mobile app development team.

Why not take a moment to fill out our project specification form to let us know your
project requirements and one of our account managers will get in touch to answer any
questions and show you what our expert developers can do.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Fintech?
Fintech is a financial software solution that upends traditional business practices.
Examples include Transferwise, which offers low-cost real-time international money
transfers, and Bitcoin, which is a digital currency that allows payments.
What is the best Fintech mobile app?
Transferwise is an excellent application that allows users to send money to almost any
country in the world. The app also allows users to open accounts to send and receive
foreign currencies. Users can even apply for a credit card too.
Where to find Fintech developers?
DevTeam.Space is a leading fintech development company. To date, it has developed a
number of blockchain-based fintech solutions as well as many others.