Web and Mobile Banking App Testing

Meet Our Client¶

Our client is a distinguished figure in the banking sector, with a legacy extending beyond 150 years. Starting its journey in Spain, this banking giant has grown into an influential global player with a strong foothold in the United Kingdom, Europe, and Latin America.

Understanding Challenges¶

Our client faced a crucial challenge: redesigning their retail banking application while migrating to an upgraded version. They needed to ensure the application’s critical functions, such as client accounts, card services, and money transfers, remained seamless.

Our main task was to maintain system stability and achieve optimal response times, particularly under high user load, to provide a frictionless user journey and deliver the best user experience possible during the process.

Solutions and Activities¶

With the aim of facing this huge challenge successfully, we developed a holistic testing strategy that encompassed multiple types of testing, from functional and usability to exploratory and performance.

Initiating our engagement, our team set up collaborative sessions with the bank's electronic channels, technology teams, and their software provider. These discussions were pivotal in grasping the functionalities that required testing.

We crafted test cases in Microsoft Excel and employed Azure DevOps Server (formerly Microsoft TFS) to manage incident reports. Our focus was on functional and usability testing across various browsers, operating systems, and devices, prioritizing areas most crucial to users.

Operating in an independent testing environment, yet with access to production services, our team fine-tuned user profiles through BackOffice and related applications. Post-completion of all test cases, we engaged in exploratory testing, aiming to widen our test coverage, especially in business-critical areas.

Our performance testing phase involved simulating diverse user load scenarios. We focused on pre- and post-release environments, fine-tuning our approach to mitigate risk. Notably, our load testing under peak user conditions offered valuable insights for enhancing the system's performance.

Here we share some key insights from our load testing:

• The system’s capacity to handle up to 75% of the anticipated peak user load in an hour, with an error rate under 14%.
• Identification of higher response times in critical functionalities, including login steps.
• An observable increase in response times concurrent with user load spikes.
• Discovery and rectification of database deadlocks during the testing process.

Results and Achievements¶

In our collaboration, we played a pivotal role in elevating the bank's digital platform. Our efforts not only enabled a seamless transition to the new system but also strengthened the application against potential disruptions, thereby enhancing user trust and system reliability.

• Enabled a seamless migration to new banking software by identifying 250 incidents prior to go-live, 25% of which were high severity and 18% critical, resulting in a frictionless end-user experience.

• Boosted system reliability through the discovery and rectification of performance issues, decreasing the risk of system failures in the most critical areas of the business during peak usage times.

• Improved the system's response efficiency, particularly in high-traffic scenarios, by pinpointing and addressing areas with high response times.

This partnership went beyond technical enhancement. It was about fostering confidence in digital transitions and helping our client to solidify its commitment to superior digital services. Our efforts led to a robust and user-friendly banking service and reinforced the bank's position as a leader in innovative banking solutions.