The financial sector is evolving significantly and its future promises to be exciting. Banking products and services will blend naturally into users’ daily lives, while payments and financial operations will be carried out with total fluidity. Furthermore, the incorporation of products of this nature into third-party applications will become increasingly easier.
The future of integrated banking experiences
Artificial intelligence and advanced data analysis have revolutionized the banking industry, allowing for a deeper understanding and more agile prediction of each client’s needs. Financial operations, such as payments, loan applications and money transfers, have been greatly simplified thanks to their integration into applications and platforms of all kinds.
However, as we look to the future, human expertise will remain important in making critical financial decisions, such as mortgage advice, small business lending, and inheritance and retirement planning. Now, there is a challenge: combining artificial intelligence with human empathy. In other words, banks must prepare for a cultural change that precedes a customer-centric technological revolution. This change involves fostering an environment that promotes collaboration, adaptability, and a collective commitment to innovation at all levels of the organization.
Technologies that will make a difference for banks
Understanding customer needs through data analysis is essential to anticipate their requirements. With the advancement of analytical technologies and other custom enterprise software development, this has become possible. Let’s delve into some of these technologies that promise to revolutionize the sector:
- Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI): efficiency in the management of data collected by banks is a historic challenge. A challenge that AI and machine learning are helping to overcome. Now, understanding transaction histories, customer demographics and market trends has been simplified, allowing banks to personalize offers and predict customer needs more effectively.
- Open API Architectures: Full integration with fintech partners is achieved through open API architectures, another key technological leap. APIs enable partners to self-serve and maximize banks’ strengths, thereby enriching the customer experience.
- Cybersecurity: attackers are perfecting their strategies, damaging mobile devices with increasingly sophisticated techniques. An example of this is the development of malware. Consequently, financial institutions and their software application development company must strengthen protection, adopting the best available security practices. Implementing advanced code protection techniques, enabling real-time visibility into threat vectors, and implementing device-level protection are examples of these.
One by one, the tools and trends for 2024
As we have seen, it is crucial to understand new technological trends to select the most appropriate software development tools. Now, what is a software development tool? Simply put, it is a program or application designed to assist developers throughout the software development life cycle (SDLC), facilitating tasks such as creating, modifying, testing, and maintaining the final product.
Here is a list of some of the best development tools on the market:
Android Studio
It is the official integrated development environment (IDE) for Android application development. It provides comprehensive features, including a visual layout editor, debugging tools, and performance profiling. It is essential for any custom software developer as it offers a comprehensive solution for building, testing, and packaging apps on this platform.
Android Studio Highlighted Features:
- Code Editor – Offers a smart code editor with autocompletion that makes it easy to write high-quality code efficiently. Compatible with Kotlin, Java, C and C++.
- APK Analyzer: Allows you to inspect the composition of your app’s APK to optimize size and facilitate debugging.
- Code Templates: Provides predefined templates for common application features, speeding up the development process.
- Layout Editor – Used for creating user interfaces (UI). With a drag-and-drop interface, it allows you to quickly design and preview how apps will look on different Android devices.
Appium
It is an open source project and software ecosystem that facilitates the automation of user interfaces on a wide range of platforms, including mobile (iOS, Android, Tizen), browsers (Chrome, Firefox). Its versatility and scalability make testing much more efficient.
Appium Featured Features:
- Cross-platform testing: Allows you to test both Android and iOS applications with a single test script.
- Automated UI Testing – Makes it easy to set up automated UI tests to detect and fix issues early.
- No application modification required: Appium works with real applications without the need for additional modifications or particular SDKs for testing.
Bitbucket
It is a cloud version management service, optimized for enterprise teams. With advanced integration with Jira and built-in CI/CD capabilities, it allows you to write, test, and deploy code directly from the platform. As part of Atlassian’s Open DevOps solution, Bitbucket integrates seamlessly with other company products such as Jira, Confluence, and Trello.
Bitbucket Highlights:
- Built-in CI/CD – makes it easy to write, test, and deploy code directly to the platform.
- Flexible deployment models: You can opt for Bitbucket Cloud or Bitbucket Data Center, depending on your needs.
- Branch Permissions: Improve code security by allowing you to control who can commit and push code to specific branches.
CocoaPods
It is a dependency manager for iOS and macOS projects, making it easy to add third-party libraries and frameworks to Xcode. It is an essential tool for scaling projects efficiently, simplifying dependency management and external code configuration
CocoaPods Highlighted Features:
- Dependency Management: Its core functionality helps manage libraries and dependencies during application development.
- Centralized Repository: allows you to search and integrate the libraries necessary for your project.
- Xcode integration – makes it easy to add and update libraries while you work on your app.
flutter
It is an open source framework for front-end development that allows you to create cross-platform applications with a single code base. This means you can develop apps for different platforms without needing to create separate native versions, resulting in significant savings and the ability to reach a wider audience with your app. Flutter uses the Dart programming language and provides a wide range of pre-built widgets for easy development.
Flutter Featured Features:
- Real-time reload: See code changes instantly, without needing to restart the application.
- Customizable Widgets: Design attractive and functional user interfaces for your application.
- Single Code Base: develop applications for Android and iOS from a single source code, optimizing time and resources.
Conclusion
The future of the banking sector will be characterized by constant innovation, driven by the expansion of cloud platforms, the evolution of APIs and progress in areas such as artificial intelligence and cybersecurity. Therefore, understanding and using the most important software development tools on the market is key to reducing time to market , optimizing the use of resources, developing functional solutions and improving return on investment (ROI).
On the other hand, it is essential that you select software development tools that align with the requirements of your business and the capabilities of your team. Tools that you can handle efficiently.
