Is your Banking App not crash-proof? Here’s what you can do!

Online Banking frauds have been very common in the last few years and as a result, globally, consumers have lost millions of dollars in online banking. Despite all the distrust and apprehensions around online banking, financial and banking apps continue to launch and get promoted. Financial apps are even in demand, especially, the applications that enable instant payment via mobile devices. In such a compelling scenario, how can enterprises with innovative ideas ensure a crash-proof and secure application? Also, if security testing is the only way out, why are applications still facing unstable performance in the consumer space?

According to a report, ‘The average cost of a data breach per compromised record was $148, and it took organizations 196 days, on average, to detect a breach. Overall, the total cost, per-capita cost and average size of a data breach (by number of records lost or stolen) have all increased year over year.’ With growing cybersecurity scares, these losses seem to potentially increase and cause a serious turmoil in the market scenario.

Additionally, the growth of Fintechs (Financial Technology) has resulted in the use of smartphones for mobile banking, investing services and cryptocurrency. Their ultimate objective is to make financial services easily available and approachable for general consumers. The concept of Fintechs revolve around leveraging technology for enhanced consumer experience and seamless consumption of financial services. Hence, in any possible scenario, the application cannot break!

Why security measures for accessing banking apps are not enough?

With increasing cybersecurity risks, every online portal or a news portal has been publishing articles around securing your mobile application and finding a secure access point for it. For instance, directions such as, install authenticate anti-virus software, avoid using Public Wi-Fi or Use VPN software, regularly install latest updates of your Smartphone’s operating system, keep changing your password regularly and keep it strong, avoid signing-in your net-banking accounts via mailers, and much more.

These directions are very much essential, but how good these can be if your application itself is flawed. Today, banks and businesses are under strict scrutiny to ensure necessary security measures for safety of customer information. As per the guidelines of the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA), organizations must develop the required organizational and technical measures to protect sensitive consumer data from unlawful processing, accidental loss or destruction of or damage to personal data (data security breach). Ultimately, data controllers must remotely prevent the possibility of compromising the data in any way, which applies particularly for banks and financial institutions.

Additionally, banks and financial institutions are expected to keep the recently implemented EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) into perspective before launching their financial applications in the consumer space. A 360 degree view of the consumer and regulatory scenario is essential before enterprises, innovators, or fintechs decide to deep dive into the application development mode.

Think differently to crash-proof your banking applications

None of us can imagine the expected problems that may occur if our banking applications crash, and worse of all, if there is a breach. According to a report by Deloitte, ‘Cyber risk is a top concern for financial services risk managers. Staying ahead of changing business needs and addressing threats from increasingly more sophisticated actors are top challenges for executives. This level of maturity is also reflected in the way cyber risk is currently managed at many banks. In particular, funding for cybersecurity continues to increase and there is greater cooperation among banks, counterparties, and regulators, including sharing of information and best practices. Yet cyber risk is only getting more complex, and in ways that are not fully understood and predictable by many.’

We look at these easy hacks that enterprises, innovators, and futuristic visualizers can consider while developing applications.

Become a Hacker

The best way to stop a hack or a breach is to engineer that breach. This will help testers and developers to monitor the risks and gaps as they happen. Moreover, the attack would be from outside as an external intruder with malicious intentions. The ‘attack’ can be engineered in various forms, via a public Wi-Fi or a mobile network to gauge the impact on the security factors and even the performance.

At the same time, an ethical hack has to be a strategic decision and has to be supported with a proper plan. The plan must focus and record each step to ensure that no stone is unturned and every step is validated. Even application monitoring tools can be implemented to check for the behaviour that leads to the ultimate crash.

Monitor against networks

Good network and poor network. An application can behave differently under both network conditions. Hence, it is critical to test your application under both the scenarios. Especially, under poor network conditions, the application can show instability, poor performance, leading to a crash. Hence, to ensure that the software’s functionality remains stable under all network scenarios, it is recommended to test the application under slow network conditions.

Check for memory of the application

We often hear from users that the application goes slow with time and then ultimately crashes. The prominent reason behind this is the application’s memory. So, it’s important to look at memory management factors while building your application. Identify areas that consume a lot of memory, analyze data structures, and keep prioritizing the memory needs of an application once it hits the consumer’s mobile device.

Ensure compatibility with the device

One of the greatest boons of ensuring compatibility is to enhance user experience. When you check for compatibility, you validate the application’s UI, processing power, loading capacity, and various background threads on a particular device. However, there is less possibility that you might be able to cover every device, OS, and configuration while testing your application. But while planning your testing process, it’s important to prioritize.

Cigniti’s dedicated Banking Domain Competency Group (DCG) furthers our thought leadership in the Banking functional and technology landscape. It facilitates effective delivery through an experienced pool of top quality test consultants who are industry SMEs and certified professionals.

Speak to our experts to leverage our experience in the Banking space with proven tools and accelerators that can positively impact the effort involved and help reduce the time to market for its clients.