iOS and Android Banking App Evolution for a Commercial Bank with $3.5B+ in Assets
Summary
ScienceSoft revamped the mobile banking apps and provided IT consulting services for Kapital Bank, Azerbaijan’s oldest commercial bank with over $3.5B in assets. With ScienceSoft's help, the Client improved its in-house mobile development processes and got fast and cost-effective mobile app evolution.
About Kapital Bank
Kapital Bank has operated in Azerbaijan since 1874. Today, it renders banking and financial services to over 5M individuals and 22K corporate customers from the major economic sectors, including energy, agriculture, transportation, construction, and telecoms. The bank has the widest network of branches throughout the country and is involved in implementing major governmental and social programs.
In 2016, Kapital Bank first commissioned ScienceSoft to develop its customer-facing iOS and Android banking apps. Thanks to ScienceSoft’s vast experience building custom banking software, Kapital Bank promptly launched state-of-the-art mobile banking solutions that helped the company win digital leadership in the regional financial services market.
After the launch, Kapital Bank relied on its in-house IT talents to maintain the apps. However, the growing complexity of the bank’s servicing infrastructure and miscommunication between the IT teams complicated the app maintenance and disrupted the flow of updates. It resulted in suboptimal IT operations and delayed releases, which could negatively impact customer experience. Trusting ScienceSoft’s mature project management and mobile development cultures, Kapital Bank turned to us to hire IT professionals who would optimize the development process and coordinate the mobile apps’ revamp.
Mobile Banking App Evolution and IT Consulting
Project management consulting to improve the development process
ScienceSoft assembled a team of a project manager, an iOS tech lead, and an Android tech lead to audit Kapital Bank’s development workflows. Having analyzed the company’s app evolution needs, IT team composition, and existing development operations, our experts suggested improvements to drive higher efficiency of the mobile development processes. In particular, they composed a list of competencies needed to bridge the skill gaps in the in-house IT team.
ScienceSoft’s project manager took over the coordination and supervision of Kapital Bank’s mobile development team. He helped Kapital Bank establish effective collaboration flows between the IT team members following the Agile approach. With his assistance, the bank implemented cross-team and cross-departmental communication best practices to prevent development bottlenecks and operational disruptions.
Mobile banking app revamp and maintenance
Following ScienceSoft’s advice, Kapital Bank decided to augment its IT team with additional talents to speed up its mobile banking apps' front-end modernization and functional evolution. The company opted for ScienceSoft’s mobile banking development experts, who have already proved their proficiency in the domain. We provided Kapital Bank with 5 iOS developers, 3 Android developers, and a QA engineer to cover full-cycle functional testing of the apps.
ScienceSoft’s experts promptly analyzed the scope of work and adjusted to the in-house IT team’s sprint schedule. Kapital Bank’s mobile apps recently underwent a complete architecture and UI redesign, so their front ends needed substantial recoding. Together with Kapital Bank’s IT team, our developers engineered the apps’ front ends, offering a new tech stack to facilitate smooth app evolution. In particular, ScienceSoft’s mobile tech leads suggested moving the Android app from Java to Kotlin and the iOS app – from Objective-C to Swift. It would help accelerate the development of new mobile banking functionality and simplify the resolution of any potential app performance or UX issues.
As of May 2023, ScienceSoft’s team has been involved in continuous app evolution for over two years. After successfully completing the front-end revamp, our experts participated in designing and implementing the banking product advertising module and new functionality for payments and personal finance management. As a result of our cooperation, Kapital Bank’s team acquired new tech knowledge and adopted the mobile development best practices to streamline their workflows.
IT infrastructure audit and risk management consulting
As the popularity of digital banking services steadily grew, Kapital Bank anticipated an increase in demand for its mobile banking solutions. The company wanted to ensure the high scalability of its IT infrastructure to support business growth and prevent potential performance issues that could negatively impact the service operations and customer experience. Owing to ScienceSoft’s decades-long expertise in infrastructure services and cybersecurity, Kapital Bank involved our experts in assessing its IT infrastructure and business-critical systems.
ScienceSoft provided Kapital Bank with a dedicated team of 3 solution architects, a performance testing engineer, an ICT engineer, and a project manager. In just 4 weeks, ScienceSoft’s talents conducted a high-level audit of the bank’s IT infrastructure and back-office systems, which included code review, architecture review, process analysis, and network resilience assessment. Our experts identified the potential performance, scalability, integration, and security issues associated with the growing volume of financial data and prioritized the areas for deeper examination. As of May 2023, ScienceSoft’s team has summarized the audit results and is developing a long-term IT risk mitigation plan. Kapital Bank plans to involve the team in resolving the identified issues at the app, database, infrastructure, and network levels.
Nahid V. Zeynal, CIO, Deputy Chairman of the Board at Kapital Bank, says:
Since the start of our cooperation in 2016, ScienceSoft has been a reliable tech partner in our mobile banking development projects. We are impressed with their pragmatic project management, quality-first mindset, and transparent communication. ScienceSoft’s solution architects, developers, and QA engineers are true experts in their fields and have shown deep understanding of the mobile banking specifics, which is critical for our business. They have always been friendly and readily shared their knowledge — ScienceSoft’s advice helped us bring our internal IT processes to the new heights.
I’m happy to say ScienceSoft contributed a lot to Kapital Bank’s digital success. They are strongly motivated to deliver maximum value with their services and went above and beyond for us. I’d gladly recommend ScienceSoft as a loyal development partner and an excellent IT consultancy.
Key Outcomes for the Client
- Efficient and uninterrupted mobile banking development processes due to the adoption of development best practices, improved project planning, and fixed collaboration and communication flows.
- Fast and cost-effective evolution of iOS and Android banking apps due to team augmentation with skilled development and QA talents from ScienceSoft.
- The opportunity to drive high customer satisfaction and engagement and win new clientele with modern, user-friendly, and high-performing banking apps.
- The possibility to proactively prepare the IT infrastructure and banking systems for business growth and minimize operational risks thanks to the comprehensive IT audit and consulting provided by ScienceSoft’s team.
Technologies and Tools
iOS: iOS Swift 5, UIKIt / SwiftUI, Combine, SPM, SnapKit, MVVM, GoogleMapsAPI.
Android: Kotlin, CameraX, WorkManager, Storyly, Lottie, MVVM, Adjust, Room, RxKotlin, Dagger 2, Retrofit 2 with Gson/Jackson, Material2/3, Glide, Timber, Cicerone, Play Services.
