Project Snapshot
Digital products for online banking and investment firms, such as our client, require constant maintenance from a team of highly experienced software engineers. On the one hand, the company must demonstrate compliance with many Swiss financial regulations. On the other hand, they must also continue to answer customers’ demands for dynamic, secure, and user-friendly online banking services and trading platforms. Our client needed to expand its team of software developers to meet demand. As a result, Intellias helped the client by supplying over 30 engineers to work on the client’s various financial products. Among other accomplishments, the expanded engineering team is responsible for digital banking modernization of the client’s online trading platform and mobile applications.
About the client
The client is a long-established Swiss banking group. In business for over three decades, the client is known for its focus on digital trading and investment services. They support both individual investors and professional asset managers, offering a wide range of tools for trading, portfolio management, and everyday banking. Over the years, they have earned a reputation for combining Swiss financial standards with a tech-forward approach to online investing.
Business challenge
Investors expect quality engineering to develop their trading platforms. They also want intuitive and friendly applications for trading in a secure environment. When our client, a leading Swiss bank, decided their outdated website and mobile applications needed a facelift as well as a security update, they also discovered that finding engineers was not so easy. These engineers had to be strong coding experts who could navigate the Swiss banking regulations. The client needed to hire software engineers who could fit into their existing environment and deliver customized digital products on time.
When the client first contacted Intellias, they wanted to develop a dynamic, fresh, and powerful set of user applications to address changing customer banking and trading needs. Their list of projects included:
- Trading platform legacy modernization for capital market investments, including both mobile trading app development and updates to the website
- New internet banking, trading, and onboarding features
- A know your customer (KYC) module to improve security and compliance
- Integration of the bank’s customer relationship management (CRM) system with the banking and trading platform for better management of customer data and for reporting requirements
Solution
With over two decades of experience in the financial and insurance industries, Intellias was well-prepared to help our client extend their engineering team for banking legacy app modernization. We have many senior-level engineers who have worked in the heavily regulated banking industry. Starting in 2020, we agreed to supply the client with 32 full-time equivalent (FTE) engineers. The engineers were broken into five squads to serve the different business needs of the client:
- Client onboarding: In this module, engineers develop the backend and frontend of the website, as well as iOS and Android mobile applications. This module also requires an automated quality assurance (AQA) process of the client’s acquisition system to onboard new customers. The mobile platform provides access to online banking, foreign exchange (forex), and retail trading accounts in just a few clicks. Users enjoy a seamless sign-on experience and rapid onboarding. They must complete a thorough background and due diligence verification process, which reduces the potential risks associated with prospective customers.
- Trading and pricing platform: Intellias engineering teams also develop the trading and pricing platform that offers a broad range of foreign exchanges (forex) and cryptocurrency. Users navigate a dynamic, multicurrency digital trading space in an all-in-one solution. The platform provides customers with advanced tools to trade stocks, ETFs, bonds, and cryptocurrencies from a single, multi-currency hub.
- Customer data module: Customer data is imperative for the bank’s back-office operations. A team of Intellias engineers develops the customer module. This includes the development of an API that integrates the customer data module with a corporate custom CRM system and back-office operations. In addition to processing customer data, the module also unifies the data within the system architecture.
- Online banking portal: Intellias engineers also develop the client’s online banking platform. A friendly user interface (UI) provides an exceptional customer experience (UX) to navigate the client’s financial products. In addition to accessing the platform, the portal also provides access to chatting with customer service, the bank’s newsletters, and documents with e-signatures. The trading company’s customers get fast access to their accounts in a fully digitalized, centralized location.
- Mobile trading applications: Intellias also provides engineers for digital banking app development and trading mobile app development. Built for high performance and speed, the stock trading mobile app development created trading technology applications that enable users to manage their investments from their Android and iOS devices. These applications include intuitive and robust tools for trading the same currencies and financial instruments on the bank’s web-based trading and pricing platform.
Business outcomes
By partnering with Intellias, the client yielded measurable results. The extended engineering team strengthened the Swiss banking group’s ability to launch new services while maintaining the reliability expected in a regulated banking environment. Our work supported the client’s double-digit, record revenue and profit growth. It also helped them keep pace with rising customer demands and changing global investments.
The joint work by the extended engineering team:
- Sustained the platform’s growth during periods of high trading volume and increased cryptocurrency activity
- Reduced operational risk by preventing bottlenecks in customer data that could disrupt customer access to the platform or mobile applications
- Supported the client’s ongoing customer growth
- Strengthened loyalty among the bank’s customers and improved revenue opportunities through feature development
Technologies: Java, Spring, Hibernate, Oracle DB, Rabbit, React, Redux, Microfrontends, Docker, Jenkins, JUnit, TestNG, Selenium/Selenide, Playwright, WireMock, Sonarqube, Kotlin on Android, Swift on iOS