Banks and financial institutions persistently face the requirements to improve their digital services. It is a continuous fight for them to remain relevant with their services by frequently updating to external and internal changes. Banking software must freely adapt to digitalization and evolve with regulatory changes. As banking and financial applications must incorporate the changes frequently and quickly, they must depend on software test automation to improve the application speed, agility, stability, and consistency. The proportion of IT budgets allocated to testing is expected to rise to 39% by 2022. As per a Capgemini research paper, test case automation is likely to increase from 28% to 45%.
Regardless of how banks and financial institutions propel software automation testing practices, it would still be a half-baked effort with an inadequate right test automation tool. If banks and financial institutions adopt test automation solutions lacking proper test automation objectives, the banks and financial institutions will face many challenges and limitations like high maintenance effort and cost compared to lesser ROIs. However, if banks choose a well-defined test automation vision, they can improvise test validations with less effort and budget, gaining high ROI. The BFSI needs an end-to-end, highly advanced, and seamless Robotic test automation solution that can navigate the rapid changes. Here is the guide to give you an adequate knowledge of what you must focus on while deploying automated testing for banks:
Selecting the right test cases to automate Banking application need functionality in high-risk condition. Financial applications require speed and stability to meet continuous regulatory changes. It is essential to choose the right test cases for robotic test automation to test the banking applications. There are several criteria that can help choose the right test cases to automate. The need to run repetitive tests for multiple builds, tests which are prone to cause human error, and tests that require running on different configurations all provide better results with test automation.
Selecting to create automated tests resistant to UI changes Banking applications frequently undergo a high volume of UI changes. It leads to periodic up-gradation of banking applications. Software test automation practice ensures that all these changes do not affect the application features. It is essential to deploy the automated testing for banks, but it is more important to deploy the right tool so that any changes in the UI do not affect the application between the builds. One of the biggest reasons the team desert the test automation initiative is the high costs, effort and time required for re-scripting and maintaining your test automation artefacts. For automation to be effective, it must eliminate or reduce the effort required to continue with relevant application changes. This will ensure that financial application testing is resistant to evolving UI changes enabling the deployment of robotic test automation for banking to be seamless.
Selecting to test early and often It is crucial to test banking applications early and often, as financial applications have multiple confidential financial data. The early and often testing of banking applications will ensure that bugs are detected early in the testing cycle. Software testing is a continuous process. It is implemented simultaneously with the development process. The banking applications need progressive software test automation tools that can be implemented on day one and built gradually. The repetitive tests are conducted to ensure that all changes are incorporated into different test scenarios automatically and intelligently by using the same module as a basis for improvisation. Testing thus proceeds at higher speeds and with greater coverage.
Selecting to create good quality test data A common challenge for banks and financial institutions with automated testing is gaining access to production data and replicating it as test data. Test data has to meet two separate objectives—one, it has to represent the test cases exhaustively without duplication, and two, it must be easy to maintain and re-set in case of repetitive rounds of testing. To illustrate further, it would require the skills of an Excel Master to be committed to a banker with intimate knowledge of the business data.
Selecting to test interfaces Banking applications run on a network of varied specialized applications inter-connected via sophisticated interfaces. Banking and financial applications are no longer the monoliths as they were a decade ago. These applications are tested for their robustness. They are also validated for interface accuracy across builds. In solutions where the APIs and UI are independently developed, usually at different points of time, the UI and the APIs might offer the same business operations but enforce a different set of checks and controls. Such applications make it imperative to ensure consistency across both these channels.
With banking application being one of the most complex applications in the software and testing industry, the seamless deployment of automated banking application testing becomes a vital need. The right deployment strategy will ensure both seamless and successful testing for maximized ROI.