Award-Winning Mobile Banking App for a Commercial Bank with $1.5B in Assets
About Our Client
The Client is a European bank with 80 service centers and $254 million of equity capital.
Challenge
The Client needed iOS/Android applications that could provide ultimate mobility, quality customer-oriented service and meet high security standards. Another requirement was custom back-end development. ScienceSoft was trusted to implement the project due to its deep understanding of the banking industry and considerable experience in iOS and Android app development.
Solution
With only a Project Manager on the Client’s side, ScienceSoft was engaged in the full cycle of mobile banking application development from defining and analyzing requirements through design and prototyping to implementation, testing and market release.
When creating the application, both the Client and ScienceSoft were focused on enriching user experience. Thus, the tool was designed to let users perform a wide range of financial operations such as balance check, credit/deposit management, money transfer and online payments (including scheduling and enabling automatic payments), mobile topping up, currency exchange rates and more.
At the same time, the app pushes the capabilities of mobile devices to the limit and makes use of such functions as GPS-navigation (to help find the nearest service point), push notifications, and integration with SMS-banking in case of Internet connection failure.
Since information security had been another big concern, ScienceSoft developers implemented a two-step user identification system provided by the global leader in authentication – VASCO data security. This solution is based on a PIN code, which is linked to the application once it is activated. Since no external interference is allowed, even if the PIN is known to a third-party, the application is completely secure. Moreover, it's hassle-free, as the user doesn't have to generate separate codes for each session.
Preserving a minimalistic approach, ScienceSoft team was able to create a slick user interface with crisp colors, intuitive navigation elements and configurable dashboards. The easy-to-use feedback forms allow users to submit security alerts, request a call-me-back from the bank and rate and review service points.
The app also takes advantage of augmented reality in order to help users find the bank’s nearest self-service terminal, ATM or a banking center. When a user opens the AR geolocation feature, they first set a filter in the top right corner of the app to the type of a service point they are looking for. Then, the app augments the real image on the screen with a radar, a level of compass precision, and an arrow that guides a user to the point-of-interest, showing the distance left to it.
Results
The application was successfully delivered and is now available at App Store and Google Play. Helping the bank’s customers become more flexible, save time and gain more control over their financial activities and products, the app has gained widespread recognition and took part in mobile banking award ceremonies in 2014 and 2015. It now holds a silver title "Android Mobile App - 2014" and has 2 golden awards: "Best Mobile Banking for iOS - 2015" and "Best Mobile Banking for Android - 2015".
We continuously deliver updates and fixes, based on feedback received from app users and test groups. In the future, the Client plans to implement unique options as well as develop a tablet version of the app in cooperation with ScienceSoft.
Technologies and Tools
Android: Android SDK, Android Studio, Eclipse, SQLite, Volley, Gradle, logcat, UiAutomator
iOS: Objective-C, XCode 6, UIkit, Core Data, Location Services, SVN
Back-end: Java 1.7, Spring Framework 4, Hibernate 4, Quartz 2, Ext JS 4.2, JUnit 4, Mockito 1.1, Maven 3, MySQL 5.6, JBoss AS 7
Other: VASCO's DIGIPASS for Mobile, Google Maps
