Examples of Custom Fintech Software Development Services
There’s an increasing demand for fintech software development services. Each service offered is unique, with a particular set of constraints and goals that’s not universal — and may, in fact, only apply to one specific company doing one specific thing at one specific time.
Given this, it’s wise to forgo off-the-rack solutions and explore the possibilities available through fintech consulting services, which can offer invaluable expertise in selecting, building, and deploying the most efficient solutions for any company.
Assessing Your Tech Stack
Unless you’re building from the ground up, you already have systems and sunk costs in place. They may not be perfect; in fact, they rarely are, as every new venture involves a certain amount of figuring things out on the fly. There is one huge thing in their favor, though: They already exist. So whatever you’re adding to the structure must integrate smoothly with every moving part that’s already established.
Therefore, a partner who has come on board to provide fintech software development services should start by carefully assessing each existing piece of the stack:
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What does it do?
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How does it do it?
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Can it be done faster or easier or at a price point that makes it worthwhile?
Although it’s never too late to bring in fintech consulting services, it is true that the earlier you start, the better off you’ll be. Although there’s always a way to develop a solution for whatever pain point you’re experiencing, it’s far better to begin a carefully planned and integrated approach as early as possible in the life of the company. Any fintech developer has horror stories of companies that made poor technology choices early and then spent years living with the fallout. It’s much better to proactively avoid the time and financial cost of undoing mistakes later. Speaking of undoing mistakes:
Analysis of Existing Processes
G.K. Chesterton coined the brief parable we now refer to as “Chesterton’s Fence.” The short version: If you’re walking around and you find a fence with no discernible purpose, tearing it down is a terrible idea. Or, as Chesterton himself put it:
“If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”
It’s not a subtle point: Creation is difficult, and destruction is not. Anything that has survived the test of time deserves serious consideration, since factors that led to its creation may not be immediately visible.
This is a potential red flag; a fintech consulting service eager to rip things out and start from scratch without taking time to understand what already exists is likely to run into unforeseen problems, which can lead to costly budgeting and scheduling overruns. A firm that is intentional about taking the time to fully analyze your existing processes before making recommendations is a firm that will provide a more customized — and therefore more efficient — solution.
Maintenance of Stability and Security with Fintech Services
No matter how many bells and whistles it has, any fintech is useless if it lacks security or stability. Transactions must go through every time, and their data must be protected every time. For your enterprise to grow, that security and stability must be robust, scalable, and easy to update.
People tend to think of scalability as something primarily connected to tech — but in reality, the bottleneck to scalability is often the human developers behind the scenes, as they roll on and off the project, as demand requires. A problem arises, and the person tasked with solving it needs a week just to understand the existing code adequately enough to construct a solution.
Fintech software development services can work around this effectively by automating quality assurance processes. One way this can be accomplished is by a simple rule: Any time we write a function, we write the unit test for it, and any time we solve a bug, we write a test to make sure it never finds its way in again. Each new piece of code then gets run through that ever-evolving test suite.
A fintech consultant using this approach is doing more than simply pushing good code; they’re also guaranteeing that any issue will be seen immediately when it pops up in the future—before it breaks your system. This automated testing is the most important thing that often goes undone in the tech world, but it’s so crucial because it’s one way that a codebase scales across the collective mind, rather than living in one dev’s head who might happen to be unavailable on the day something breaks.
Communication Best Practices
It’s odd to think that success in highly technical pursuits is dependent on subjective soft skills like communication, but it’s nonetheless true. Communication with your fintech consulting firm is crucial, as they are key partners whose goal is to help you create new revenue streams and leverage points for your business.
On the front end, they should ask some very specific questions about fintech services:
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What do you want to do differently, and how are you currently doing it?
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What do you want to build and what’s kept you from doing it until now?
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What is your current pain point, and what will success look like?
It’s also very important to assign them a domain expert — someone from your business who understands everything and can communicate it concisely. When a developer has a question about the workflow that processes a form or transaction, and it takes them hours to track down someone with the answer, that’s unproductive time that you’re ultimately paying for. So give them one person who can quickly answer all their questions or point them in the right direction.
Likewise, you should expect this overcommunication from your fintech partner as well. It’s not at all unreasonable to require weekly updates with metrics like “We’ve got [X]% of code completed, and we’re at [Y]% of budget remaining.” All of this serves to ensure that everyone is on the same page, with the maximum possible knowledge of where things currently stand.
It’s tech; something is always going to break. Things you don’t know will always exist, and you’ll never know you don’t know them until that moment you realize you don’t know them. Over Communication on the things you do know minimizes those moments and gives your software developer the tools to handle them effectively when the world is on fire.
Access Top-Notch Fintech Consulting Services
DBA offers fintech software development service and consulting that minimize fire drills and solve them quickly when they happen. With a team of seasoned developers, a culture built around asking the right questions, giving the right answers, and a toolbox of solutions for any task, they have a record of success with partners large and small. DBA is an experienced fintech software development firm that implements industry-leading practices throughout the custom software project lifecycle. To learn more about our approach, book a meeting.
