13 Questions to Ask Your Fintech Development Company
As of 2023, the value of FinTech is estimated to be over 164.1 billion US dollars, according to Boss Magazine. The market is growing to keep up with increasing demand.
If your company is among the firms that are seeking a fintech solution, you may be keenly aware that off-the-shelf solutions may not be right for your business. (We’ve discussed in previous posts why many firms need to graduate from shrinkwrapped not-quite-right general-purpose software to custom financial software.)
However, even if you’re convinced, where does one begin evaluating the services of a fintech developer?
It starts by getting curious. There’s no shortage of software consulting firms pitching their services, and any one of them may claim to have experience in this field.
You’ll need to separate the desperate-and-willing-to-try consultants from the firms with real and deep experience to find the best of the financial software development companies.
Let’s go over some of the important questions you can ask your fintech development company.
#1 How much experience does your company have as a fintech developer?
When you need expertise in financial software development, you need to look for a firm that’s “been there, done that.” There’s no substitute for having been in the trenches and delivered dozens or even hundreds of fintech projects. Ask a vendor, point blank, “How many times have you done this before? Tell me about one or two of them.”
#2 How do you stay updated on the latest regulatory changes in the financial industry?
One of the reasons that a dedicated fintech development company is better than a company that’s creating an iPhone game one week, a word processor plugin the next, and fintech the third, is that keeping on top of regulatory changes is a full-time job. Ask vendors if they read the Journal of Financial Regulation and to name a regulation that’s changed recently (if the best they can come up with is Sarbanes-Oxley from over 20 years ago, there’s a problem!)
#3 Can you describe your approach to ensuring regulatory compliance in fintech projects?
Anyone can say “sure, we care about regulatory compliance,” but the trick is to suss out if they actually know what they’re talking about—and if their decision making is prudent or reckless. There’s always the bond villain compliance strategy fintech developer approach of doing just enough to claim that you’re complying, but real financial software development companies will think long-term and protect you from harm down the road by doing prudent and serious compliance. You need to ask the question and listen to the answer—is a given fintech developer proposing to actually meet both the letter and the spirit of the regulation to keep you out of trouble, or are they proposing to cut corners?
#4 What security measures do you implement in your development processes to safeguard sensitive financial data?
An experienced firm—a true fintech development company—knows that the deployed running application must protect sensitive financial data. Just like the best way to avoid drips in a plumbing project is to use proper technique to solder the pipes together correctly (and not to wrap leaking joints with tape and glue later), the right approach to guarding data is in the design and coding stage, not trying to ameliorate the issues later with patches and hacks.
#5 What technologies and frameworks do you commonly use in fintech development?
An experienced fintech development company has wide experience with alternatives in databases, middleware, languages, dashboards, graphing packages, and more. The leaders and developers can pick the right tool for the particular job. Don’t just ask them which technologies they use—ask them if they can explain alternatives and tradeoffs. Less experienced firms can’t.
#6 Are you experienced in integrating blockchain, cloud computing, and other relevant technologies?
Not all financial software projects require all of these, but many require one or more—and even if your project doesn’t today, it might tomorrow. Don’t just ask a vendor, “Can you do X?”. Most vendors will think, “Sure, I have no doubt I could read up on that and do it,” and answer “yes.” Ask a vendor if they’ve got experience with these technologies, and press for details.
#7 How do you ensure that the fintech solutions you develop are scalable and adaptable to changing requirements?
We’ve discussed before that businesses evolve and so do their software requirements. It’s important that your development team is prepared for this. Ask them hard questions about how they would scale things if your customer base increased 10 or 100 times. Ask them what they’d do if you suddenly needed to integrate your software with a new package that communicated via a REST API, or CSV files.
#8 What development methodology do you typically follow, and why?
Different software teams use different processes, each with advantages and disadvantages. Ask a vendor if they use “agile,” “waterfall,” or something else.
Agile development is designed to deliver flexibility and adaptive planning, but rigid adherence to a specific Agile approach’s rules _can _defeat the very purpose of being Agile in the first place, which is why we recommend and use a process called “agile light.”
Because we try to set reasonable expectations for short-term delivery as well as monitor the number of tickets in active development, we typically use a Scrumban approach, which is a form of “Agile Lite.” This means we closely monitor the number of tickets in the “Ready for Development” state as well as in the “In Development” state. This allows us to keep our developers fully engaged—there are always enough “Ready” tickets to fill the time allotted for the sprint, but not more tickets than can be accomplished in the sprint.
#9 How is the ownership of intellectual property rights handled in your projects?
Everyone buying software expects “work for hire,” but there are horror stories where firms have been surprised with ongoing bills, either disguised as contracts or just presented as “fees” for ongoing use of custom software. In some cases, the delivered components could even belong to other parties. Verify upfront that your vendor owns all of the intellectual property and will sign all of it over to you.
#10 What are the licensing arrangements for the software developed?
Sometimes, there are situations where it’s cheaper to license a component than to reinvent the wheel. Would you rather pay a $25 annual fee to use Microsoft Windows or pay $200 million to build a partial clone? Licensing can also reduce upfront fees. Ask vendors which components are work-for-hire and which—if any—are licensed.
#11 What support and maintenance services do you offer post-launch?
The only thing worse than making do without custom software is having custom software that no one can support.
#12 How do you handle updates, bug fixes, and ongoing improvements?
As business requirements change, you want the same experts who built it to be there for you, willing to add new features, migrate you from one data center to another, and more. Additionally, the open and closed source components that go into custom solutions are upgraded and receive critical security updates. How will your vendor handle these?
#13 How do you hire fintech developers to staff your projects, and what skills do they have?
Projects have lots of moving parts, potentially including databases, dashboards, third-party integrations, logging, and more. Some consulting firms have one salesperson who can talk a good game and land a contract. Then, they staff up for a given project with lowest-tier subcontractors who quickly read documentation and do their best, but “the best” from someone who has never done a task before may not be good enough for you and your business. Ask firms about specific key employees. Ask for their names, experience, and areas of expertise.
Work with the Best Financial Software Development Companies
Finding the right fintech development team can result in a project that fits your needs, is developed on time and on budget, and delivers the security you need. Going with the wrong team, though, can result in an explosion—over budget, over deadline, unsupported after launch, and full of security holes. In short, it’s the difference between bliss and disaster. Take the time to ask the hard questions and select the partner with the right answer.
At DBA, we have years of experience specializing in crafting tailored financial software solutions that cater to each phase of your business’s journey. Our goal is to empower you with profound insights derived from your financial data, facilitating enhanced decision-making and strategic foresight. Schedule a meeting today—we’d love to talk!
