EzySpot

A few years ago, when the CFO of JP Morgan Chase announced that “we are a technology company,” it created ripples in the financial service sectors. After all, digital transformation in banking was still a new concept back then. At the time of this announcement, the financial firm allocated a $9 billion technology budget and hired 40,000 technologists to create intellectual property. The sole purpose of the firm was to cater better to digital-savvy customers. JP Morgan Chase was one of the early players who understood the need for technology adaption to gain a competitive advantage to entice its customers.
 
Fast forward, 2021. Today, the banking industry is going through a profound transformation as the industry embraces the next major phase of digital transformation. Now banks are more concerned about:
•    Better customer experience
•    Rapid releases
•    Faster go-to-market
•    Better performance under huge volume of transaction load
 
With the emergence of new techs like AI, ML, blockchain, big data, and digital payments – the digital transformation in banking is undergoing a rapid technology disruption. However, it is a lot easier said than getting the implementation done. Customers now expect banks to deliver accurately with speed. Thus, there has been a paradigm shift to Quality and Agility, and banks are striving to meet their customers' growing expectations.  The need of the hour is:

•     Performance of apps under huge transactional load
•     Integrating with other applications such as trading accounts, centralized payment systems, 3rd party agents, etc.
•     Addressing security threats and firewall protection against hacks and other vulnerabilities
•     Frequent and timely auditing to ensure compliance
•     Support for multiple platforms and devices to promote omnichannel experience – web, mobile, wearable devices, etc.
 In addition, with a large number of releases and updates, project managers deal with vast amounts of test data specially with testing applications for highly compliance driven industry like banks.  

How can test management tools help in the digital transformation?

Test management tools help in optimizing testing by planning and strategizing the testing activities, thereby giving visibility into project/product status for market readiness.
Not surprisingly, to break the silos and bring in the structure, banking application testing needs test management tools.

Why test management tools are a must for banks?
 
Financial institutions and banks are accelerating to update software and release new products to keep up with customers' growing demand. This can be translated as rigorous testing of software with speed. Major challenges with digital transformation in banking are –

•    Better customer experience
•    Faster releases and thus speedy go-to-market
•    Meet regulatory compliance
•    High performance
•    Secured system
To solve these problems, testing cannot be in the back burner. You need to put testing in the forefront and devise a strategy to have a full proof secured and high-quality product. For this, it is a must to have a solid test management tool. A test management tool is a centralized repository for managing all your testing activities.

High level benefits of test management tools are –

•    Increase productivity of your testers
•    Maximize ROI
•    Ensure product readiness at any given point in time
•    Increase test coverage
•    Promote end-to-end traceability and visibility into your product status
•    With increasing customer demand and competitions, test management tools have become an absolute necessity to win the race in the digital landscape
 
However, the implementation of continuous testing and test management tools can be challenging. Financial institutions need to devise a long-term plan and stick to it to make it a success. 
 
Selecting the right test management tool

Today’s banks need their systems, tools, processes, and teams up to speed. Frequent and incremental releases are required to meet customer expectations and ensure a high-quality user experience across channels. What BFSI application testing requires is implementing a platform that understands the core challenges of modern banking and one that allows them to implement multiple integrations and software quality metrics all the while helping with regulatory compliance.

Investing in a test management tool for your bank is a big decision. Here is a checklist that will help you to choose the best one that works for you.

•    Support multiple platforms
•    Agile and DevOps ready
•    Simple to use, intuitive interface
•    Integration capability in the DevOps pipeline with tools such as Jenkins, Bamboo, Jira, Maven, SVN, Git, etc.
•    Customizable dashboard and meaningful reports
•    Auditing capability with change logs, versioning, and history logs
•    Compliance driven workflow with e-signature feature
 
The takeaway

As the digital transformation in baking is accelerating its speed to meet the growing demands of the customers, the banks now need to focus on updating and releasing software that are capable to deliver with speed and accuracy. In such a scenario, adopting test management tools is the only way forward. A trusted and efficient test management tools has many benefits including maximizing the ROI, increase productivity of the testers, increase test coverage, and so on. However, it is important that banks choose the right test management tool that can accelerate their digital journey in a forward direction.