Must Consider Factors for Mobile Banking and Secure Fintech App Development

Would you rather pay $4 Billion or $200 million? Ask Equifax, a company responsible for exposing the personal information of 150 million customers which cost them heavily because they did not take into consideration some basic and simple factors for mobile banking app development and secure fintech app development. 

Contents of the Blog:

• Mobile Banking Trends & Blunders to Avoid
• Factors for Mobile Banking and Secure Fintech App Development
  • Secure App Logic
  • Secure Code
  • Secure Infrastructure
  • Safety in Everything: Development, Pre-production, Production environment
  • Thorough Testing
  • Data Encryption
  • Laws and Regulations
  • Next-Gen Technologies
• Systango and Fintech App Development
  • FutureBricks
  • Fintify
• Final Words

 

Mobile Banking Trends & Blunders to Avoid

Before we go on to explore some factors on how we can make sure that we have done everything during our mobile banking app development and secure fintech app development process, let’s look at a few trends in mobile banking development:

• 1.75 billion users will conduct banking operations via their mobile devices in 2019 (Jupiter)
• The value of mobile payment transactions reached $78.09B in the USA in 2018. This sum is expected to increase to $189.97B by 2021 (Statista)
• The leading global banks have invested almost $80M in, and have launched 606, mobile banking applications (Exicon)
• The top reason for using mobile banking software in the USA is convenience, which is mentioned by 45% of respondents (Statista)

Although, there is another statistic that we should look at and work towards improving:

A study by the Clearing House in 2018, found that two-thirds out of 1500 people were extremely worried about their data and privacy while using fintech apps. And their fear is valid as there have been some huge blunders in the past few years. Some major ones are:

• 2005 – Card Systems Solutions – 40 million credit card accounts 
• 2009 – CheckFree Corp. – 5 million people affected
• 2010  – Educational Credit Management Corp. – 3.3 million people affected
• 2014 – Heartland Payment Systems – 130 million customers

• 2017 – Equifax – 143 million accounts in the US
• 2019 – Earl Enterprises – two million credit cards

So if you want users to use your mobile banking app or fintech app, hire fintech app developers that can help you provide the highest level of privacy and security.

Factors for Mobile Banking and Secure Fintech App Development

1. Is the App Logic Secure?

Security is of utmost importance, every step of the way.

• Store only what’s important

Apple Pay popularised the concept of tokenisation, creating one-time codes for payment, in an effort to limit the risk of major data breaches.

In this method, you don’t need to store the debit and credit card numbers for payments. The servers will hold what’s called the token. The entire system then just deals with the token and no one needs to know the underlying billing information.

• Usage of Complex Passwords and 2 Factor Authentication

According to a 2017 report from Pew Research Center, only 52% of American adults use two-factor authentication, and about 25% of them prefer to use simple, non-secure passwords because they feel they may not remember complex passwords.

• Keep Track of Everything

Make sure to log all user activity. For eg:

• the action (e.g.: transaction),
• User ID or account in the platform,
• IP address,
• geolocation,
• device data

While building your mobile banking or fintech app, make sure your app developers keep logs of everything and that these logs need to be easily accessible for a potential ‘post-mortem analysis’ when any incident needs to be reviewed.

• Have Multi-Step Approval Processes for Key Actions

In case of actions revolving around large transactions, or change in crucial information, it would be more secure to have a multi-step approval process in place. Sure, the customer may find it a little pain at times, but when it comes to security, you can never be too safe.

Some other must-include features to ensure security while going for your mobile banking development or fintech app development are: 

• Do not store any sensitive information on local machines
• Always use SSL for all communications between your mobile banking app or fintech app and its servers
• Implement biometrics or voice recognition
• Automatic log out in case of no user activity for a predefined time
• Have text notifications for all transactions done on the app
  

  2. Make sure that the Code is Secure

Mobile banking and fintech apps are focussed on money and sensitive data, so there’s absolutely no room for errors. While these apps need to be intuitive and easy to use, they need to be secure.

Some practices that we follow when working on mobile banking app development or for secure fintech app development:

• Validate Every Input

Input validation helps prevent hackers from injecting your app with malicious code, by either sanitizing or rejecting the input. There are many websites and apps that have been hacked just because they lacked input validation.

• Review All Data Sent to External Network

In case your app needs to send any data to external networks, make sure that it is absolutely necessary and review it to ensure it doesn’t have any sensitive information.

• Define Access Control

If you want to build a secure fintech app, it’s important to have access controls in place to avoid disclosure and unauthorized use of data.

• Protect Against SQL Injection

Get your QA Team to attack your app with SQL injections to test its vulnerability and see how it performs. If you want to have the highest levels of security, make sure your app is impenetrable.

3. Use a Secured Infrastructure

You should use the best possible infrastructure for your mobile banking and for a secure fintech app development. Here’s how we help you achieve that:

• Implement Perimeter Defense

This is for your proxy servers and firewalls. Configure your routers properly to protect against any internal attacks.

• Maintenance of Operating Systems and Application Servers

Use tools like Microsoft’s Software Update Service and RedHat’s up2date service to regularly maintain and update your operating system.

• Manage Third-Party Components

If you are using third-party components for your mobile banking app development or fintech development, make sure you monitor, maintain and update it regularly in case of any vulnerability.

• Have Failover Redundant Infrastructure

Leverage services provided by AWS cloud for faster disaster recovery and minimizing the impact of DDoS attacks. Each layer of the technology stack should be prepared for redundancy. 

• Use HTTPS

Use HTTPS SSL certificate to keep your user’s data safe and secure. For all our mobile app development, we use it as a de-facto standard to force SSL for any request they serve.

4. Ensure Safety in Everything

• Separate Development, Pre-Production, and Production Environment

While going for a secure fintech app development, make sure your developers have access only to the development environment. This will ensure business-critical data is not touched. 

• Implement ISO 27001 Certificate

ISO 27001 is one of the best information security certifications. We at Systango are ISO 27001 certified which ensures that we follow best practices for security policy, risk assessment, incident management, and more. 

5. Test for all Possible Scenarios

Testing is everything.

• Check Network Security

Test your network – servers, network devices, and DNS.

Test your operating system, the database, storage, and all other components.

• Check Everything From The Client-Side

Perform client-side penetration testing or internal testing. Basically, check the application while it’s running in the browser and making sure that no breach can occur. Here, you perform JavaScript execution, HTML injection, CSS injection, Clickjacking, and testing local storage. This will help you answer some very important questions such as:

• Are there any vulnerabilities in the system?
• If yes, what and how harm can be done, and how can you prevent it?
• Are the access rights for everyone set correctly?
• Are there any weak points in the system?
• Server Security Testing

For server-side security testing, we help our enterprise clients hire an independent security agency to do a yearly penetration test and comply with all regulations.

6. Use Data Encryption

Encrypting data basically means sending the original data to the right user and meaningless data to hackers or unauthorised users. There are many encryption algorithms available, but we at Systango, use AES ( Advanced Encryption Standard), one of the safest methods for this. Having HTTPs or SSL during transmission of data is not enough,  all of your databases need to be protected by data encryption. 

According to the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council, financial institutions and banks should encrypt all the following information:

• All personal information that a user gives in order to get a specific service or product (like – name, address, income, social security number)
• All information that can be received from a transaction (like – payment history, credit card purchases, account numbers)
• Information that can be received while providing specific financial service (like – a consumer report)

 

7. Follow All Laws and Regulations

In mobile banking app development or for a secure fintech app development, there are many financial laws and regulations that you need to follow. These laws differ with countries, and regions, so it’s better to partner with a software development company or hire fintech app developers that are not only familiar with these laws but have built fintech products for other clients in those regions.

• Follow GDPR Guidelines

EU and EEA countries have mandated companies to follow GDPR guidelines from 2018. This is to ensure data protection and offer transparency on how data processing is done and what done is used or stored. Not complying with the GDPR policy could mean a huge fine and serious legal consequences. 

• Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS)

The goal of PIC DSS is to maintain a secure network and protect users’ data by regularly monitoring and testing the system in order to reduce credit card fraud.

• Follow PSD2 

The European Commission adopted this proposal and enforced it from 14 September 2019. The aim is to create a safer, more innovative payment ecosystem across the entire continent, make cross-border financial operations easier, and support online payment initiatives, like open banking.

8. Level up with Next-Gen Technologies

To provide a high-level of personalisation, secure fintech app development is done using emerging technologies such as AI, Machine Learning, or AR/VR. The app then takes into consideration the user’s behavior and preferences to make the experience more satisfying and intuitive.

• Big Data 

Money management, risk management, and fraud detection are some of the applications of big data in secure fintech app development. FinTech companies also benefit from data analysis solutions to make predictions about future trends and assess potential risks and benefits (for example, when investing a considerable amount of money). 

• Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Voice-processing systems and digital assistants (chatbots) are now possible. These next-gen technologies also help in detecting any vulnerabilities and anomalies that would be untraceable for a human and help in taking security to the next level.

Systango and Secure Fintech App Development

Many banks, startups, and hedge funds like Deloitte, Ransquawk, Taxshield, ATSC, Balboa Capital trust us for our deep understanding of all things FinTech. 

Our fintech app developers have helped clients build AI-enabled infrastructure for crowdfunding, mobile payment systems, digital wallets, ML enabled platforms, predictive behavioral analytics, Robo-advisors applications, data-driven marketing. 

Futurebricks

We built a P2P lending infrastructure for small and medium-sized real estate development projects for our client Futurebricks, who are authorised, and regulated by the FCA, UK. 

We worked alongside the Futurebricks team to set up an iron caste vetting process, both for the lenders and the borrowers.  Given that platform also allows money transactions and in some cases also holds funds, this secure fintech app development needed FCA regulations compliance.

We helped them launch their P2P Lending web app within a short span of 3 months including successful pen testing!

Fintify

Fintify is a budgeting, personal finance aggregator and monitor app that allows its users to calculate their net-worth and monitor investments across multiple geographies. We were chosen by the Fintify team for our domain and technology expertise both. 

Systango – We Are The Tech in FinTech

Always find a technology partner that will help you add real value to your business. If you need a specialised team with not just technical expertise but with business domain knowledge, Systango is the team for you. Our fintech app developers help you build a safe, secure, and flawless user experience for your customers. Get in touch to know more!