End-to-End Testing for a Mobile Banking App Rated 4.8 on Google Play

Customer

The Customer is a reputable commercial bank aimed at supporting small and medium businesses.

Challenge

Aiming to attract new clients and improve experience of the current ones, the Customer decided to launch a mobile banking app enabling customers to make payments and manage their funds on the go.

This ambitious project set several challenges for the testing team. To cover a wider audience, the bank chose to develop an application for two most popular platforms and needed mobile app testing services. The application had to be compatible with highly fragmented mobile operational systems (iOS 9.3.5+ and Android 4.0.1+), which implied comprehensive testing. Besides, Android runs on numerous devices by different manufacturers, and many of them have certain device-specific peculiarities that had to be addressed.

To create a positive user experience, the application had to enable users to act as if they were at a physical bank branch. Consequently, the app had to have a complex functionality and react rapidly to changing conditions (changes in the legislation, a revised payment system, etc.). This required swift and precise testing covering risk-prone features and areas of the system.

Solution

To address the fragmentation challenge and assure proper device coverage, the testing team chose to test the devices (over 20) most popular among the bank customers. The devices had to be powered by at least iOS 9.3.5 or Android 4.0.1 for the application to run properly. This approach helped address the needs of a vast majority of users and timely troubleshoot the issues affecting them.

The project implementation required close collaboration between ScienceSoft’s testers and the bank’s representatives. Considering how complex and highly responsive the app should be, usual functional testing was out of question. Instead, the testing team relied on modern Agile testing methods, such as Beta testing of each stable release candidate. The Agile testing was absolutely transparent for the Customer, as the test scenario was prepared with regard to valuable comments delivered by the employees of various bank departments. Applying Beta testing, the ScienceSoft and the Customer’s employees tested the app for 1-2 days before its release, which allowed them to explore the product in detail.

When it came to regression testing, ScienceSoft’s mobile testing team kept in mind the need to preserve the app’s leading positions on the local mobile banking app market. Cooperating with the Customer, the testing team developed a regression testing scenario made up of 89 critical test cases. The developed scenario considerably reduced the testing time and helped update the app swiftly and seamlessly.

Results

The project has been on for 5+ years. The fruitful joint efforts of the developers, the bank representatives and the testing team resulted in delivering a high-quality updatable mobile app compatible with a number of mobile devices, including wearables. The app operates seamlessly across a wide range of iOS and Android devices and provides secure environment for various transactions, which makes the app a high-quality user-friendly tool covering the majority of functions available at physical bank branches.

Awards

The team’s painstaking work brought rewarding results. The Customer’s app won numerous awards from a local trend-setting portal of the banking industry:

• Silver in "Android Mobile App 2014"
• Gold in "Best Mobile Banking for iOS 2015, 2016 and 2017"
• Gold in "Best Mobile Banking for Android 2015, 2016 and 2017"
• Gold in Best Mobile App 2015 and 2016

Currently in the 50-100K range of downloads, the app ranks 4.8 in Google Play.

The success of the Customer’s app ensured the Customer’s continuous cooperation with ScienceSoft.

Technologies and Tools

Atlassian JIRA