Mobile banking apps: It’s testing & 4 cardinal areas to consider

Shakshi ShiviHead Of Content
Published:
By this time the large percentage of day-to-day transactions have shifted to mobile banking; here are some overriding areas QAs must investigate while testing mobile banking apps.
 
By this time the large percentage of day-to-day transactions have shifted to mobile banking; here QAs must investigate some overriding areas while testing mobile banking apps. So, take a gander at 4 important areas of interest while testing mobile banking applications.

In a recent survey KPMG reports that by 2019, mobile banking users will double and hit a fourth of the total populace. Similarly, Gartner articulates that it envisages fifty percent of shoppers in the fully grown market to use smartphones for mobile payments by the end of year 2018. With the emergence of internet and arrival of mobile banking services in the market, a large fraction of daily transactions has moved away from bygone channels, for example, ATMs or bank branches.

Banks today understand the need to concentrate on a cross-channel experiences creation for their clients keeping in mind the end goal to hold their consideration. While creating apps that are high on execution and usability is the key, expanding client interest for mobile apps brings a comparable demand for robust mobile testing too.

In the testing situations for banking apps QA teams are liable to concentrate on guaranteeing application security. App security is the major concern in retail banking applications that works on a public (open) platform, where the user is more vulnerable to cyber-thefts. In whatever way, other than assuring security with standard application testing techniques, there are four principal areas that veteran testers tend to neglect.

Creating Domain Particular Test Information

Mobile banking app user’s bank account data, phone number, date of birth, and address is the confidential information that can be misused easily if visible in the public domain. Thus, in many nations there are regulatory requirements to safeguard personal information. However, this frequently prompts to inaccessibility of production-like records and presents a challenge for Quality analysts where they might not have admittance to the right sort of test information.

A decent case for creating the right test information can be found in retail banking applications that permit testing over various gadgets with different screen resolutions. For instance, a client may have a long name and $1,000,000,000 in his account, whereas another client may have a couple of thousand dollars as his account balance. In both cases, testing the application with production-like information is significant to guarantee that the screen design is in place with various information sets.

Thus, by applying an approach that consolidates data masking as well as synthetic data creation one can effectively manage this matter. With the help of data masking the account related data are veiled via mechanized scripts. The veiled (masked) data are then embedded into a database reduced version for testing. Likewise, engineered – synthetic test data formed in a test environment subsequent to comprehending the business flow endways.

Highlighting Contrasts Plainly in Test Arrangements

Test arrangements ought to plainly diagram the functional, informational, or technical variances amongst creation and test situations so that the related dangers are moderated well ahead of time. In most banking apps, file transfer over various frameworks in production is automated through File Transfer Protocol; though in most test situations, this file transfer is performed manually.

Suppose the monthly account statement of your bank account (financial balance) is transferred automatically in production to a DWH (data warehouse) keeping in mind the end goal to keep up the transaction history. Yet is being transferred manually in the testing environment (i.e., Quality analysts’ put the file in a designated directory and afterward the DWH expends it).

The automated transfer in production authorizes testing of situations, for example, delay in transfer, transfer of the same file more than once, another record (file) abrogating the current record, and so on. In mobile apps, a deferral in transfer may prompt to critical customer disappointment as smartphone users expect a fast response from the applications. Such situations should be considered and the risks ought to be taken care of or highlighted obviously in test arranges.

Managing the High Volumes

Another testing challenge if there should arise an occurrence of retail banking applications is dealing with the high volume of information that banks keep up. A small operation can produce generous information volume. For example, online client’s easy operation may result in picking up the log in date, time, user location and the entire sequence of steps that he might have performed. Banks may need to keep up adequate assets to store such details that can assist them avert and solve digital violations. Indeed, information capturing is regularly a prerequisite and is a regulatory (administrative) compliance essential. Nevertheless, mobile devices can have limited hardware resources, like RAM, processor speed, and so forth. It is important that gadget execution is tried with high volume of information to guarantee that while utilizing the application the end client's experience is wonderful. The end-user won't wish to use a compromised performance application regardless of the possibility that the hidden usefulness works as anticipated.

For this situation, the test approach must uphold the production of unmistakable information sets for each interface, therefore resolving key ranges of effect for a specific feature across interfaces. Isolated test data sets should likewise be made for every environment  because the accessible back-end DB for one environment may induce a different cut-down variant of information from production. While we do as such,the gadget execution should be measured with tools like, Little Eye or Xcode.

Comprehending Usage Patterns
High discontinuity of gadgets and stages is another challenge that a Quality Analysts ordinarily confronts. Endeavoring to test all combinations are frequently an exorbitant and a purposeless practice on a mobile as new combinations are presented consistently in the market. ​Testing on various platforms like iOS, Android, and Windows, covering different working framework variants like iOS 5.x, 6.x, 7.x, Android 4.4, 5.0 and a scope of gadgets from producers like Nokia, Samsung, HTC or Apple are for all intents and purposes unimaginable.

Rather than going up against a fantastic errand of testing in a divided way, embrace a subjective approach. Select just those platforms or gadgets that have the most astounding penetration in a given topography. For example, in the US and Canada, the attention might be on top-of-the-line iOS/Android smartphones while for Brazil and other Latin American nations, the application might be tried on low-end Android phones. For ideal testing, increase comparative insights by mining information from Google Analytics, Dynatrace and so on.

Get contributions from your marketing research teams and know how your clients are dealing with the application. For example, 70%-80% of the clients frequently just get to the retail banking application to check their balance and make some transactions, for example, money transfer or bill payment. Comprehend the client's attitude and the application usage patterns, and organize testing endeavors likewise.

At last, application testing teams should be outfitted with the detailed knowledge and follow a strategically innovative and technical bearing. In this manner, when chipping away at specific domains like mobile banking applications, enduring the extra mile, past the standard testing practices is a key part of an analyzer's learning and development.
 
 
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