By Leon Booth,  Australia and New Zealand Enterprise Manager, Tricentis 

Consumer expectations and the demand for speed and ease of financial transactions is growing, while software release cycles continue to shrink. And with the increasing number of non-financial institutions handling payments, financial businesses are facing new competitor-disruptors in all directions.

When financial organizations test software, whether it’s banks, insurers or payment providers, they’re verifying software that helps power global markets and transactions. In this tightly regulated environment, these businesses face significant scrutiny while at the same time needing to manage the explosion of data from digital transactions and touchpoints.

It’s no understatement to say this requires a reimagining of testing processes.

In this competitive, highly charged environment, some of the world’s leading financial organizations are finding a way to meet these challenges by improving their testing processes, according to Tricentis research.

Examining the testing processes of 110 top global financial companies, the research showed that testing as a discipline is generally taken more seriously in the financial industry. What it reveals is that fast, innovative application development has become more than a competitive advantage – it’s a necessity. 

Operating in a complex, regulated environment

Enterprise financial organizations operate in complex, highly regulated environments. In these settings, a small glitch in procedures can have serious consequences, potentially leading to compliance lapses and even penalties. In the world of global financial transactions, there’s no room for error. ‘Move fast and break things’ is not an option here.

In this complex market, cross-country financial transactions often use an array of specialised message protocols like SWIFT and SEPA. Even as these companies adopt microservices and APIs for connectivity and openness, their transactions still need to pass through industry-specific, packaged applications such as SAP and Salesforce.

Pushing lightly tested updates to production with fingers crossed and rollback ready might be feasible for many businesses, but not in the financial industry. Despite the challenges, leading financial organizations are not sitting idly by and hoping. Tricentis research found financial organizations are testing their applications rigorously prior to release, with test coverage nearly 50% more mature than non-finance industries.

Consumer expectations and the spectre of disruptors

Customers have come to expect nothing less than a flawless digital experience anytime, anywhere. Financial industry leaders’ applications need to be adaptive, responsive and intuitive. If they fail to deliver, here’s no shortage of digital-native disruptors—both fintech and “Big Tech” — keen to steal them away.  

In today’s context, fast and innovative application development has become a competitive necessity. However, as innovation pressures increase, so do the testing challenges. If legacy systems were already difficult to test in the era of static release cycles, software is now expected to evolve as conditions and consumer demands change.

So it’s pleasing to report that when compared to their peer industries, financial organizations testing processes, across automation, data strategy, resilience and test coverage and management, are 29% more mature than their peers in other industries.

How financial organizations are meeting the challenges

Tricentis research into the world’s top financial organizations reveals testing as a discipline is generally taken more seriously, with the industry rating higher across the span of testing metrics. For example, looking at internal expertise, they’re up to 46% more likely to have test architects and automation engineers, their cross-functional collaboration is more mature and they have a more mature test data strategy.

Financial organizations face challenging test environments that are difficult to generate on demand, include complex application stacks with everything from mobile to mainframe, multiple integration points, specialized message formats and daunting test data requirements.

It’s no wonder financial teams face more difficulty mastering these practices than their peers in other industries. Yet within the industry, there are some standouts. Banking organizations, for instance, are far ahead of their peers in test automation maturity, and insurance organizations lead the pack in terms of how they manage test data, our research revealed.

Financial organizations are more likely to start adopting critical continuous testing elements such as automation, testing in continuous integration, service virtualization, and test environment strategy, although they’re less likely to have mastered them.

Trust and reliability are integral to the success of financial organizations and it’s this demand for robustness that compels these businesses to adopt these critical practices. Meeting stakeholders, customer, and regulatory requirements demands they are able to rapidly assess whether changes break any core functionality – something that’s just not achievable without sophisticated test automation integrated into the DevOps pipeline and on-demand access to reliable, realistic test environments. 

The benefits of an AI-driven continuous testing platform

Leading financial organizations are feeling the pressure from the competing forces of innovation, complexity, and regulation. These companies must reimagine the way they do business, and fast, innovative application development has become a competitive necessity. 

As the demands of innovation rise, so do the testing challenges. In examining the testing procedures and processes of some of the world’s leading financial organizations, our research revealed they’re rising to the challenge. 

With Tricentis, they have a continuous testing platform that is automated, fully codeless, and intelligently driven by AI that can handle complex, sensitive enterprise applications on a timely, robust and secure platform.

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