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Fintech Application Development

Table of contents
The State of Tech and Apps in the Finance Industry Types of Apps in the Fintech Market With Best Examples on the Market What to Look Out for Before Developing Fintech Applications A Step-by-Step Guide to FinTech App Development Types of Revenue Streams in Fintech App Challenges in FinTech Product Development Processes Fintech Industry Trends in 2022

The last two years can without exaggeration be called turning points for the fintech app development sector. The main reason is global digitalization caused by COVID-19 and quarantine restrictions. The virtualization of fintech stimulated the emergence of new tools for the provision of financial services, the growing popularity of neobanking, cryptocurrencies, mobile applications, and innovative IT technologies. 

Devlight invites you to dive right into the world of fintech mobile application development to discover its latest trends, pitfalls, and tips together.

The State of Tech and Apps in the Finance Industry

Today we can notice a change in the positions of key fintech applications. Pandemic and social distancing forced the number of contactless and online payments to increase significantly, which has led to an aggravation of the issue of the cost of transactions. Of course, in the coming years, international payment systems will retain their key positions, and financial institutions will play an irreplaceable role in the legal part of this. However, business interest in alternative payment methods has increased. 

At the same time, during the pandemic, the popularity of electronic wallets and cryptocurrencies has increased, and many countries are moving towards the creation of digital currencies. What is more, the variety and convenience of fintech solutions forced banks and financial organizations to reconsider their attitude toward user experience. If earlier focused on their tasks, today the needs of users are at the forefront and are the driving force of fintech application development.

Customers no longer have the patience to fill out long forms or tolerate the tedious processes of downloading printing, and scanning documents. The higher the user awareness of existing fintech apps, the higher the demand, and, accordingly, the faster the pace of development. In 2019, the EY company conducted a study according to which the level of use of fintech solutions in countries around the world is 64%, and 3 out of 4 consumers use the services of fintech payment platforms.

Today these indicators should be even higher. 2022 user is more active and interested, but also demanding, which will significantly affect the market, its participants, regulation, and the versatility of products and services. Besides, we should not forget about Generations Z and Alpha, who are growing up and whose needs influence the formation of a significant part of app development trends — banking in messengers, voice assistants when using financial products, etc.

Recent events in the world have taught us to quickly find solutions to the most unexpected events. The ability to respond to tomorrow’s needs in connection with today’s events is a necessary skill in modern fintech application development.

Types of Apps in the Fintech Market With Best Examples on the Market

Fintech application development starts with defining your niche — the type of application you want to work with. Fintech has grown in scale, influence, and several players over recent years. Thus, fintech app development attracts billions in investment every year and has logically fallen apart into several specific categories. 

What do you need to know to build fintech apps? Remember that your product can either belong to one category or combine several characteristic features, forming something new and phenomenal for the market. We will now consider the types of apps you can develop with the help of the Devlight team.

Neobanking

Different applications allow access to the bank account via a completely dematerialized system and low fees. These meet important challenges in terms of reliability, simplicity, and security of information. Neobank is a mobile banking app that has no offline representations and functions solely in the virtual space.

The global mobile banking app trend remains relevant for highly digitalized countries and those only entering this exciting world. We should expect not only the appearance of new local players but also the merging of fintech companies around the world and their entering new markets.

The popularity of neobanking is explained by the convenience and quick response to the client’s request. In 2022, neobanks will continue to supplant traditional banking. Now individuals go to banks much less often than two years ago. Digital banks will actively expand their share in the fintech industry.

Examples: N26 (Germany) — neobank, Monobank (Ukraine) — neobank with hybrid budget-planning features.

Payments and Money Transfers

Apps for mobile payments process the transactions on the behalf of a company and perform the role of an intermediary between the credit card company and credit card holder. This approach enables everyone to carry out contactless payments for whatever they want wherever they want. Small businesses get the possibility to sell goods and services that customers can purchase in one click. Such fintech apps help all users receive payments for private needs and carry out transfers daily.

All reputable businesses need to implement payment processors on their platforms and apps. This not only helps to transfer money instantly but offers customers various payment options to choose from depending on the convenience, fee, and accessibility of each. Payment app development has a functional purpose but adds to the user experience and increases personalization. 

Examples: PayPal (USA) — payment processor, Square (US) — payment software and app for businesses, Wise (UK) — a fintech app for international transactions.

Don’t know how to start your own fintech app development?

Allow the professional team to evaluate how much your idea matches the market.

Crypto Wallet App

The digital wallet working principle stays the same independently from the currency you are using. When it comes to crypto, you can use your wallet to send, receive, buy, or exchange cryptocurrency. Your assets are encrypted with a special key and safely stored inside the app. Of course, such a high level of data protection requires fintech software development services to enable some distinctive features. Two-factor authentication and data encryption are a must. 

Storing crypto is similar to storing any other currency in mobile banking in a way that you get two keys: a public (it resembles a bank account number) and a private one (your password to access the account). Of course, you can only share the first one while the second should stay confidential. 

Thus, a wallet is a middleman between a blockchain and a customer. It doesn’t necessarily store your currency — it enables you to access it and remembers the private key for you so that you don’t have to enter it manually each time.

Examples: Coinbase (US) — great for beginners, Electrum (US) — Bitcoin-specific, Exodus (US) — altcoins.

Investing/Neo Trading

Such apps represent digital platforms democratizing investments for everyone. Trading fintech app development substitutes middlemen that you would need to invest in the past by introducing tools like pro-tips, AI advisers, and Robo-brokers. You can assess risks and make favorable predictions all by yourself. 

You receive obvious safe options for investing or can set your Robo-adviser to make automatic investments for you. Such apps can be super intuitive or offer pro tools for knowledgeable stock market players. Devlight, a mobile app development company, helps you introduce the functionality suitable for the audience you are targeting.

Examples: SoFi (USA) — simple all-in-one trading shop, T.D.Ameritrade (USA) — mobile stock trading app.

Insurance

Insurance financial technology (also called Insurtech) applications upgrade the insurance market by enabling policyholders to assess risks easier. Applying for process claims or coverage is a part of their purpose. You can now meet many modern apps focusing on insurtech devoted to specific roles: from car to property insurance. In general, they help you close safer deals.

Mobile app development in terms of insurtech broadens the fintech user coverage helping regular people apply for insurance for various purposes. No more long queues in the physical insurance company or paper mountains — some native apps let you receive a signed insurance certificate in a matter of 60 seconds.

Examples: Lemonade (USA) — makes everyday insurance claims easier by introducing AI and chatbots.

Loans

Mobile apps for taking apps speed up the lending procedure by connecting the borrower and the lender directly. They do the job for you and you just have to read all the conditions carefully and choose a favorable rate. What is more, they don’t focus just on massive financial institutions like credit unions or banks but often use P2P lending (peer-to-peer). It means you can take out a loan and earn on its interest.

P2P financial apps will typically ask you to provide proof of income or clear credit history. It means you are a reliable borrower and can claim an application for a fast loan. Then, lenders, who are registered in a separate version of the app, look through the applications and respond to them. Both parties can negotiate the terms directly and sign a virtual contract on favorable conditions. 

This fintech market innovation is profitable for all: the lender, the borrower, and the app itself. As a borrower, you can carry out financial transactions straight inside the app: withdraw money, top up your account, or repay the loan. However, the development process is quite tedious in terms of design, legal issues, and back end since you have to come up with two versions of the platform for different parties.

Examples: Brigit (USA) — membership-based loan app.

Budgeting and Financial Planning

Thanks to fintech, you can also take advantage of applications allowing you to abandon your good old Excel file to manage your budget. Thus, financial planning apps allow you in particular to:

  • categorize your expenses;
  • analyze your credit reports;
  • better anticipate your budget;
  • make transfers;
  • visualize your savings using graphical tools.

Fintech sector aggregators have forged close and secure links with the historic banks. On the one hand, aggregators attract and improve user comfort, on the other hand, traditional banks allow full and fully secure access. The partnership is an element at the heart of the success of these new applications. Thus, if you develop a fintech app for budget planning, you should emphasize user-friendliness, simple account management, and exciting features.

Examples: Mint (USA) — a free app that syncs with all your income and expense sources on all mobile devices to analyze them for you, Goodbudget (USA) — great for planning future investments and expenses.

What to Look Out for Before Developing Fintech Applications

Technology does not stand still, as shown by fintech apps development, the sphere which has begun to challenge various traditional methods related to banking. More and more banks have become interested in integrating virtual operations with their regular offerings and want to build a fintech app. Therefore, it is not surprising that this demand requires and attracts a large number of developers.

If you are a fintech mobile app developer or a business owner, here are some simple and effective tips to keep you moving in the right direction towards building a successful fintech app without any confusion.

Take Care of Legal Compliance

The first thing you need to do before you build a fintech app is to study, analyze and, most importantly, understand fintech and its legal side. You can be tech-savvy and know everything about building apps but not the banking sector. You cannot be unambiguously good at everything, financial knowledge included. However, finances and banking services are the most important components of fintech, so you should study them.

The purpose of financial apps is to help users in investment, budget planning, or insurtech matters with maximum ease for them. Once you align your trajectory with the goals of your target audience, it will be easier for you to move forward. Thus, it is a great idea to introduce a business analyst, a financial consultant, and a lawyer to your development team.

Plan a Marketing Budget

Advertising costs can reach 100-150% of the total budget for building mobile apps (depending on the scale) and are fully justified. Advertising is a profitable investment that allows you to understand whether your idea is relatable to the market or such apps already exist. How do you plan to advertise your fintech startup and make people download the application after they find out about it? Having well-developed lead flows, the customer may not be afraid to release any Android app.

As for market testing, here some people prefer to save money. In any case, testing finished banking apps on real smartphone users is an essential step before entering the market. 

Plan a Development Budget

Many factors affect the cost of developing a finance app. What operating system is it being developed for — iPhones or Android? Perhaps it will be a web version? What tech stack is required to launch an investment app? What about user-friendly budgeting apps? The initial discussion stage should help you understand the needs of the project and the tools that are needed to develop a fintech that will work.

Each technology and tool embedded in an application requires market research. Will it bring maximum customer satisfaction? Is it needed for this specific project? Do you launch new fintech solutions that will take time and money to advertise? This increases the cost. 

In addition, integration with third-party resources, thorough data security, and connection banking services are often required. Of course, a detailed price can be estimated only after discussing the project. Then the tasks will become clear, and the time for their implementation as well.

To carry out technical testing, it is necessary to have devices with different versions of the operating system available or use universal platforms (for example, Device AnyWhere), which allow testing the application for all models of mobile devices of interest to the customer. Therefore, when deciding on a cross-platform app or a native app, make sure you understand the budget scale.

Find out how to avoid extra costs at the very beginning of your app building!

Interested? Eliminate any early-stage uncertainty.

Think Through a Clear Concept

New technologies are considered to be the backbone of fintech applications. Various technologies that include artificial intelligence and blockchain are considered to be the demand of the times and you simply have to include them in the application in some form. Blockchain can help with record keeping and AI should be used for purposes like personalized recommendations, data analysis, customer interactions, etc. 

The market place you will launch your app will also define its final look. Apps for Google Play Market and AppStore have a different designs, functionality, and target audience. Of course, as a progressive app development company, Devlight will help you tackle all of these preparation stages before we move on to the next.

A Step-by-Step Guide to FinTech App Development

The process of mobile application development for the fintech industry requires integration with a large number of partners and compliance with clear regulatory norms. It may sound unrealistic, but the fact remains: Devlight is the professional helper that will take over the majority of functional procedures and liberate you from the burden of making everything yourself. Here we will share our experiences and tell how to gradually turn the dream of a fintech application into a full-fledged ready-made solution.

Step 1: Discovery Phase

At this stage, the main goal is to understand exactly what the customer needs and what competitive advantages the fintech product will have. Market research should be conducted. Business analysts are irreplaceable for this purpose.

Check our article how to conduct discovery phase in software development

Step 2: Design Phase

Design is what users interact with. It must be not only convenient but also attractive to the client. An important task for our team at this stage is to create a recognizable style of the application and come up with digital solutions that will make the design intuitive, which is vital for fintech software development.

Step 3: Development and Testing Phase

Architecture development and partner selection are part of developing an architectural proposal for every fintech solution. It usually includes a mobile app, a fintech platform that orchestrates third-party integrations, plugins, and a back-office dashboard that serves the needs of the treasurer, customer support team, and compliance committee.

The stage of active development ends with a minimum viable product that you put to the test. All parts of such an application should be developed simultaneously and with no loss of quality because you should conduct a real-life test then. It is worth noting the important role of our specialists at this stage: architects, backend and mobile fintech developers, DevOps, QA specialists, Delivery managers, and product owners.

Step 4: The App Launch and Maintenance Phase

At this point, the activities of any project change, as a division into pre-release and post-release life appears. The app starts working with real money from customers. The product team should constantly analyze user behavior and developers should learn about new age cases or problems that needed to be fixed. If machine learning is implemented in the app, then studying the lead behavior gets easier.

Step 5: Constant Product Improvement

Further development of the project consists of the introduction of new features. For example, within 6 months after the public release, you could be still developing an investment platform, mobile payments, bonds, supporting bank accounts, international transfers, and many other fintech mobile functionalities. Taking the strategic plans of the client company into account is vital after the release because this will greatly influence the architecture of the project.

Types of Revenue Streams in Fintech App

Choosing a monetization frame is vital as you build fintech apps. You can combine several types of them or launch a pro version of your existing app a few months afterward. However, the main service options will be determined by the type of app you build and should be taken into account during the fintech mobile app development. Let’s talk about the main revenue options that you can implement for your apps in the financial services industry.

Loans

If you develop a loan fintech mobile app, it is logical that your service will serve as an intermediary between the lender and clients. Thus, you should take a fair fee for your help in speeding up such a lengthy legal procedure. All parties to the transaction can then share some part of the profit with you.

Paid Features

Enriching your app with paid features is another way to benefit from knowledgeable users who want more. Studying your target market during the app development process will enable you to find out what competitive features will make users pay (advanced Robo-advisers, AI predictions, and credit history).

Fees

Fintech mobile apps offering payment and transaction services are in full right to take a small percentage of the fee for their part of the procedure. This monetization option can be applied to currency exchange apps, trading, and investment apps.

Subscription Model

For other apps, providing a monthly or a yearly subscription can be a great solution. Budget planning apps, for instance, often offer their users premium features and cloud services that they can access for a monthly payment. It is rare for investment apps to stick to such a model, but the Robinhood app is an exception. This fee-free trading app and crypto wallet benefit from charging their users a $5-worth subscription every month.

Selling Non-personalized Behaved Data

NPB data is used for ads and referrals. This option will work if you have a large user base that creates high customer flow and activity inside the app. Clicks, visits, and any interactions can be monetized. Of course, they won’t cover all the development and maintenance costs but can be a great bonus for a company.

Challenges in FinTech Product Development Processes

Fintech applications development has its pitfalls connected with the specifics of this fast-growing and rapidly changing market. Since fintech is still a young industry, legal issues and data security remain big issues. Besides, customers quickly get used to a high level of quality services and force fintech startups to come up with more and more advanced features. What other challenges will you meet? 

Challenge 1. Fit the Market — Competitive Landscape

Each task or each process requires separate tools that you need to combine in one fintech application, which will be developed specifically for the tasks of your business. Cross-platform development of a multitasking resource that will help you reach a new level is quite a high bar. However, this threshold is real for fintech.

When choosing a company to develop a fintech app, you need to pay attention to many factors so that the contractor does everything you need to do well and the final tool helps you grow and develop, not just exist on the market. After you set the initial goals high, you will also need to correspond to this level all the time. With Devlight, this task becomes easier as we work on the market analysis together.

Challenge 2. Barrier to Entry

Fintech app development is an expensive project since the stakes are high. Key market players invest millions into the design, user-friendliness, specialist recruitment process, and new data security protocols. We adhere to a reasonable price-quality ratio, we always warn customers about the cost and possible additional costs. You will find out the price for the fintech mobile app development as soon as you tell all the details about it and we agree on the structure and functionality of your fintech tool.

To start discussing your business models or clarify any details, just leave a request on the site, or contact us in any other way convenient for you. Our managers will advise you, answer all your questions and tell you what to do next.

Challenge 3. Cybersecurity and Data Protection

Given the specifics of the application, your users will be forced to trust you and provide all confidential and personal data. But if all of sudden such information is somehow leaked and falls into the hands of scammers, it is obvious that your application will come to an end. Especially when it comes to big data, encryption and protection require great attention and unusual solutions.

Since your application will interact with the main systems of the bank, you simply have to ensure security and follow all legal requirements. Therefore, you should devote enough time to developing a back-end system with firewalls and proxies.

After completion of work, you should check fintech apps’ security, up to load testing for hacker attacks with the aim of vulnerabilities in the system. This is the only way you will understand if your financial technology product is well protected or if it needs any improvements.

Challenge 4. User Retention Issues

From the push notifications design to insufficient load speed — you need to be prepared for the fact that users will speak out about your application with all sorts of suggestions or criticism. What is more, they will be completely right because they have their own opinion on this matter. Listen to them and be ready to implement all the features.

This will save you time since it will be enough to put in extra effort during the research of the application so that you can protect yourself from future redesigns. To avoid user dissatisfaction, make the application interface more comfortable for them. Make sure your development includes the right features like gradient color transitions, motion graphics, etc. And remember that users are constantly using app-based services to manage their financial data and control their debt situation, therefore, they need to trust you 100% and receive all the appropriate features from you that will make them stay.

Fintech Industry Trends in 2022

The year 2022 shed light on the shortcomings and gaps in the fintech industry that faced the market during the previous pandemic. This, in turn, actualized and accelerated the development of many trends that deepened and expanded against the background of the impending world crisis and political processes. Let’s talk about some obvious and less so ones of them.

Enabling Crypto to the Banking

As practice shows, people want to make money transfers through well-known banking and financial institutions with a history, because this creates a sense of security. After all, brands and personalities are important to people, and it is big companies that inspire trust. 

People will also want to borrow money easier and faster than banks do it, without proof of income, etc. Therefore, companies in the future need to provide an alternative and determine for themselves how their centralized services are better than decentralized ones. It is where crypto will come in handy.

The Dawning of the Super-Apps

Superapps help the user not only clear the phone’s memory of digital junk, but also make the use of digital services convenient: without switching from one program to another, use all the necessary services — buy plane tickets and book a hotel, and at the same time — a transfer from the airport. Choose dishes for dinner not from one, but several restaurants, pay a single invoice and control delivery. One place to check payroll, pay for the phone and buy an insurance policy. An you as an enterpreneur can benefit from one team composition for developing all those apps.

The birthplace of super apps is Southeast Asia. It all started 10 years ago in Indonesia with Gojek, a mobile call center for motorcycle taxis and courier services. After 5 years, 4 services were combined in this application: GoRide, GoSend, GoFood, and GoShop. Their purpose is easy to determine by their names. Today, two dozen services have been united under the roof of Gojek.

The most striking example of the Asian experience of creating super apps is, of course, WeChat. It has long ceased to be just a messenger and now has dozens of financial services integrated. The Chinese prefer to watch movies, call a taxi, order food without leaving one app. This year, it also added a map that shows places where cases of COVID-19 infection have been recorded. And, most importantly, with the help of WeChat you can pay for purchases.

This functionality is especially in demand among Asian financial institutions, despite the fact that many of their residents simply do not have bank accounts. WeChat has hundreds of millions of users and, along with AliPay, has become the backbone of the mobile app ecosystem for the Asian market. As a result, many stores, service providers and other businesses are readily developing their own applets (add-ons) for WeChat in order to sell their goods directly on it.

Embeded Solutions Will Become More Popular

Companies that choose to integrate financial products into their platforms will discover the best ways to add value to their customers. Embedded finance is based on building symbiotic relationships with all stakeholders — banks, non-financial companies and fintech companies.

Brands trust fintech companies or third-party service providers for building a fintech app on the brand’s app. Fintech companies and financial service providers hope that banks will provide accurate and fast responses to API calls to their databases, and banks hope that fintechs will not abuse their secure models and will not put them at risk by providing access to their database data.

Embedded finance, blockchain technology in particular, gives companies more control over the user experience and helps them meet all user needs, whether financial or not. Another noteworthy benefit of embedded finance is the reduction in product launch times, allowing startups to launch and scale products quickly and cost-effectively.

Demand for Dealmaking in Underdeveloped Regions

Fintech finally reaches underdeveloped regions as progressive countries are making their banking sphere futuristic and more complex. African, South Asian, and Latin countries are slowly entering the market. Thus, we are sure to see a tremendous breakthrough in terms of software products development from there and should get ready to deal with many frech industry players.

AI and Machine Learning

Today fintech companies are creating trends in the field of improving customer experience thanks to the introduction of machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies.

Machine learning and artificial intelligence are the basis for determining the client’s portrait and, accordingly, improving the user experience. They allow us to offer products and services relevant to the client’s needs. ML and AI will only consolidate their positions in the automation of security processes, targeting of financial products, communication, and improvement of customer experience.

Web3 WIll Get More Mainstream

Web3 though still at the development stage is a pretty revolutionary concept. As opposed to Web2, which unites centralized data storage platforms, Web3 will enable corporations and regular users to create anonymous platforms and acheive higher privacy rate. New technologies like blockchain and artificial intelligence will be a part of this process. Of course, these changes will concern the fintech development as well.

New solutions will be delivered starting with the year 2022 allowing banks to make their apps and services more accessible. P2P transactions will reach a whole new level of privacy. However, this switch will require a stable legislative base to prevent frauds and data leaks.

Open Banking

In 2007, the European Union passed the Payment Services Directive (PSD), a bill that created a single market for payments in the EU and stimulated the emergence of safer, more innovative payment services. PSD aims to make cross-border payments within the EU as easy, efficient and secure as payments within an EU member state. This has forever revolutinized the app development in the field.

A growing number of fintech companies led to a revision of the bill, a new Payment Services Directive (PSD2) was issued, which brought with it open banking. Open Banking is a set of solutions and processes that allows banks and third-party service providers to exchange financial information and services electronically with the permission of customers. 

The key thesis of PSD2 that is vital for building a fintech app : the bank is obliged to provide the payment service provider with financial information about the client and debit the money from his account without concluding a separate agreement. For the procedure, the order of the client is sufficient. 

The growth of open banking will definitely stimulate synergy between representatives of the financial market and attract investment in fintech products.

Why Hire Devlight as Your Financial Software Development Service Provider?

Properly selected fintech solutions will make life easier for all parties involved and make most processes automatic. Here are some aspects of our competitive advantage for your fintech app development:

Approach

We accompany our customers from the first iteration to the winning one, we make products from scratch so that you do not have to look for additional solutions and try to establish the interaction of many teams.

Devlight managers are always ready to help you and answer all your questions. During the entire interaction process, you will be assigned a personal manager who will guide you by the hand through the entire process. Our pricing policy is simple and transparent, you always know what you are paying for and at what stage the development of your fintech app is.

Values

The main thing for us is the result. We immerse ourselves in the business of our customers and do our best to ensure that our fintech apps bring maximum benefit to our partners.

Expertise

We have been working in the field of fintech mobile app development for a long time, we know well which solutions work and which ones are not worth wasting time on, how to choose the right technologies to produce a quality tool, and how to correctly implement solutions to avoid errors, shortcomings, and revisions. 

If we managed to reassure you, let us know if you are interested! Devlight will be glad to accompany you on your fintech mobile app development journey.

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