For well over a decade, Keeper Solutions has been working with some incredible and truly innovative companies in the financial space, helping them build, deploy and scale market-leading software.
During that time, we have:
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Designed and built a world-leading point-of-need financing platform.
- Developed and maintained the world’s leading dynamic currency conversion platform.
- Helped one of our clients to develop and deploy a card payments platform used by the world’s largest cruise line.
- Played a key role in helping an innovative FinTech firm to build a first-of-its-kind core banking system for emerging markets, from the ground up.
- Enabled one long-term client to build over $1.6bn in shareholder value, $390m of which has been realised through successful exits.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
With years of experience under our belts, we have honed and refined a winning approach to building financial software which guides every project.
In this blog post, we will run through our simple, five-step approach to financial software development.
Step 1 – Initial Phase of Discovery and Investigation
Every software development project starts with the kernel of an idea.
A company spots a gap in the market that they believe could be profitable or worth exploring. It might be that they have an existing product that they think could be improved upon or modernized. Or, they may have spotted a user need that they believe isn’t being properly filled by the current batch of products on the market. However it comes about, there is an initial idea and the first step is to investigate if that idea is worth pursuing.
To kick things off, there is a preliminary phase of discovery and consultation, which usually takes the form of a design sprint.
Design sprints are used to properly tease out an idea — to map out challenges, explore solutions, decide on best approaches, create a prototype and test it. This approach can be boiled down into five simple words – map, sketch, decide, prototype, and test. And we make sure to consider the user every step of the way.
The design sprint usually takes between 2 to 6 weeks to complete, depending on the scale and level of complexity of the project. The design sprint is a workshop-based process, led by an experienced UX designer. It involves a small interdisciplinary team of UX designers, software architects, engineers and subject matter experts working together with the client. The client takes an active part in this process, describing current products, plans and what they are trying to achieve.
During the design sprint, we create user profiles (needs, wants, desires, fears of the product user) and the user journey, which describes the journey that a product takes a user on in order to complete a task or create value.
Step 2 – Software Product Design
Software product design is the process of identifying a market opportunity, clearly defining the problem, developing a proper solution for that problem, and validating the solution with real users.
Within our five-step process, steps one and two intertwine significantly. In the first step, we are getting to know the user and their needs. We build profiles and user stories. We address the problem at hand and what they need to overcome it.
In step 2, we design a solution that solves a problem and provides value for our user. The design stage is a blueprint for the rest of the project and goes far beyond aesthetics. It is more about building an intuitive interface that considers the user experience and user need above all else.
To build a product that captures the imagination of your audience, you need to step into your user’s shoes. A user-centric approach to product design allows you to spot challenges, identify opportunities and build a UX interface that your customers will love.
Importance of Software Product Design
Meeting user’s needs: Good product design ensures the software meets real user needs and is intuitive to use.
Business alignment: Product design balances user needs with your business’s objectives so that you can build a product or platform that aligns with your business values and moves your business forward.
Driving innovation: Great software design unearths ways to differentiate your product from others that are already available on the market.
Increasing efficiency and effectiveness: Well thought out design can streamline development, reduce costs, and improve time-to-market.
Step 3: Developing a Working Prototype and Testing It
During the design sprint, we develop a working prototype and perform continuous user testing on it. These tests provide immediate feedback, serving as a litmus test for the solution’s market fit. Vigorous user testing drastically reduces risks, increases time-to-market, and informs investment decisions.
Once the design sprint is finished, a technical architect is able to recommend a technical architecture. Within this, the architect teases out the scale of the project, what devices the product will be designed for, be it web or mobile, and what integrations are required in the back-end. They also provide an estimation of the costs and how long it will take to build the product.
At this point you have everything you need to decide if you want to pursue the final financial software build and create a market-ready software application.
Using a clickable prototype in the software development process brings a host of benefits:
Early validation of ideas: Clickable prototypes allow stakeholders and users to interact with the product early in the development cycle. This helps in to validate ideas and determine whether the design solves the user problems as intended.
Evaluating technical feasibility: Developers can use the prototype to evaluate the feasibility of certain features before writing code.
Avoid costly mistakes: By simulating real-world scenarios, you can spot design flows more easily than you might have done otherwise. This can reduce the possibility of late changes when the development process is in full swing.
Bring all stakeholders on the same page: Clickable prototypes provide a clear, visual representation of the product, making it easier for designers, developers, product managers, and stakeholders to communicate and align on the vision for the product.
Gather real-world feedback at an early stage: Prototypes enable user testing much earlier than traditional development cycles. Because of this designers can spot user behavior and preferences before the product is fully built.
User buy-in: Clickable prototypes are powerful tools for securing stakeholder approval and buy-in. They allow stakeholders to experience the product firsthand and gain more confidence in the direction the software is heading.
Step 4: Product Development and Further Testing
If you decide to go ahead with the project and transition to full scale product build, a development team is put in place. You decide on features and the software build commences.
When building financial software, there a number of things that are important to consider:
Security: It’s incredibly important to put a robust security system in place that complies with global financial standards and regulations.
AI opportunities: AI technologies can help you increase productivity, provide a better customer experience, gain deeper insight on your customers and improve the overall effectiveness of your team. If you do not consider using AI as part of your software build, you run the risk of building a product or platform that immediately falls behind the competition.
AI guardrails: When building software that is integrated with AI technology, it is also vital to ensure that proper AI guardrails are in place so that they maintain fair and ethical standards.
Regulatory and compliance requirements: The financial services and fintech landscape is one of the most complex and heavily regulated industries. When building software you need to fully understand the market you are in and the regulatory requirements that come with. You need to be aware of KYC, AML, Fair Lending, UDAP, dispute management, PCI, and other money movement considerations.
The latest industry trends: In a very competitive landscape, financial software is, arguably, one of the software types that is most heavily influenced by market trends. Companies are always willing to push the boundaries of innovation and take the steps necessary to stand out from the crowd and gain a competitive advantage. For that reason, it’s always important to keep abreast of the latest trends and influences.
Step 5: Product Launch and the Start of a New Journey!
Building financial software and launching it on the market isn’t the end of the journey. It’s just the beginning…
To stay ahead of your competitors and satisfy the growing needs of your users, you need to constantly evolve and innovate. You may add new features or improve on existing ones. You may spot new problems that your users are trying to overcome and set about finding a solution to help them overcome it. You may expand into new international markets and adapt to new currencies and policies. There is also an ever-evolving financial landscape to contend with.
It’s all part of the journey!
This blog post is part of our series on financial software development.
To check our in-depth guide to financial software development including challenges, trends and top tops, click here.
