Tag: Financial Services

Client in numbers

Problem statement

Design a unified process for paperless interaction with its individual private customers spanning all phases of the customer journey from initial contact, onboarding, and KYC to ensuring all customer interactions can be digital, convenient, and fully compliant.

Approach and solution

We created fully functional iOS and Android mobile applications utilizing a set of Open Bank APIs to demonstrate the capabilities of Flutter for rapid prototyping and to create rich applications with great customer experience. The POC that we developed had the potential to define the technology direction for the bank’s future projects in the field of mobile banking.

Impact achieved

• Mobile apps with superior UI design and CX
• Faster prototyping and time to market
• More cost-effective development

Expertise and scope

• Tech Stack: Flutter, Open Bank API

Accelerating Digital Transformation

Overview

Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB) has embarked on an ambitious digital transformation program as part of the bank’s next 5-year strategy. The digital transformation roadmap covered multiple initiatives across business units and products/channels. One of these initiatives revolved around customer journey re-imagination and digitization to improve customer experience using mobile at the centre of a multichannel strategy and back-end processes digitization. ADCB relied on the knowledge and support of our digital user experience experts to help them deliver a best-in-class customer experience.

Challenges

ADCB sought to evaluate alternatives to Kony Visualizer to enhance customer experience. They aimed to develop an entire application flow using either Flutter or React Native to create a superior user experience, free from technological constraints. The goal was to facilitate a fresh user experience and enhance existing design language. ADCB required a strategic partner to help create, optimize, and evolve their digital journeys.

Solution

We designed a flow for an existing customer to secure personal finance and upgrade to Excellency through a promotion. Developed using Flutter and Open Bank API, the flow showcased several advantages of Flutter, including:

• Near-native app performance
• Ease of developing complex UI animations
• High-performance cross-platform rendering engine
• Shared UI and business logic across platforms
• Reduced development time with ready-to-use widgets
• Potential beyond mobile application development

We created fully functional iOS and Android applications utilizing Open Bank APIs to demonstrate Flutter’s capabilities in rapid prototyping and creating rich user experiences. This POC set the stage for ADCB’s future mobile banking projects.

Client in numbers

Problem statement

A complete transformation of all customer-facing channel applications, including Customer Mobile Banking Application, Customer Desktop Banking Application, Credit Cards Marketing Application, KYC Application, and Branch Service Tablet Application.

Approach and solution

• Develop a unified backend for all frontend channels, reducing dependency on legacy infrastructure.
• Implement deployment pipelines for Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery, allowing each microservice to be deployed independently in staging and production environments.
• Fully digitize and automate all existing user-facing services while introducing new features for the Branch Tablet Application development.

Impact achieved

• In three months, the team developed and automated more than 50 service journeys, including Funds Transfers, Print Statements, Transaction Dispute Requests, Cheque Book Requests, Card Replacement, and Update Details.
• Developed a complete set of backend services around the main domain object initially backing up the tablet application.
• Achieved greater scalability
• Improved the development process by implementing CI/CD pipelines

Expertise and scope

• Deliverables: A fully-featured MVP tablet application
• Tech Stack: Java 8, Spring Framework – (Boot, Batch, Cloud, Redis), RabbitMQ, MSSQL, React Native, Azure DevOps
• Team: 5 Backend Developers, 4 Frontend developers

Digitalization of All of Customer-Facing Channel Applications for the Oldest Bank in the UAE.

Overview

We partnered with Mashreqbank PSC, the oldest and one of the largest privately-owned banks in the UAE, providing financial solutions to customers since 1967. In 2019, Mashreq bank started an initiative to completely transform all of its customer-facing channel applications, including their Customer Mobile Banking Application, Customer Desktop Banking Application, Credit Cards Marketing Application, KYC Application and Branch Service Tablet Application.

Challenges

Other competing banks in the UAE had already started similar initiatives to upgrade or entirely redevelop their channel applications which put pressure to deliver working solutions fast. The MVP phases of the apps were about to roll out almost simultaneously, and they were expected to be completed within approximately one year. Delivering a solution of that size for such a limited period was a big challenge. Mashreq could not achieve this internally on its own.

They required assistance from several departments and vendors to complete the digital transformation initiative in the desired period. Overall the team consisted of 40 members from different vendors, McKinsey Digital, and in-house Mashreq developers distributed in squads. Great cohesion, understanding, and cooperation among all units were required. Communication and alignment between teams were a primary concern, considering the required delivery speed and different deadlines set for the other applications.

Also, a key component in the old architecture – the Middleware (ESB) – was exposing all functionalities available within the bank operations. This imposed a challenge for the performance of all applications, as all applications would utilize the ESB instance, which in turn would lead to bottleneck & latency issues. To deliver the architecture promptly, we needed to quickly analyze how the bank’s existing components work and identify the best architecture concept whilst having security in mind.

Solution

We were responsible for developing the backend infrastructure, which would be used by all channels, and for creating the first MVP (tablet branch application), which the bank’s customers would use in the physical branches.

The issues with the old architecture were mainly handled through the use of the CQRS pattern & proper caching on the backend Layer. The new backend architecture was built using Java Microservices based on the Spring and Spring Cloud Frameworks. Each microservice is a stand-alone application that encompasses a bounded context (domain) following Domain-Driven Design (DDD) principles. The aim was to create one backend for all frontend channels and to detach as much as possible from the legacy infrastructure. Therefore, we introduced two main layers before the communication with the ESB.

To ensure the quality of the architecture, we developed deployment pipelines for Continuous Integration & Continuous Delivery so that every microservice is deployed autonomously in different environments – staging & production.

For the development of the MVP of the Branch Tablet Application, the goal was to completely digitize and automate all current user-facing services and introduce new ones. Account Closure was the most complex and was the first to be digitized and automated in the UB Tablet Application journey as it took about a week to complete manually. In 3 months, the team managed to develop and automate more than 50 service journeys, including Funds Transfers, Print Statements, Transaction Dispute Requests, Cheque Book Requests, Card Replacement, Update Details, etc. We successfully delivered the MVP, and the production version was first introduced in the Dubai Mall.