Convenient and Secure Mobile Banking Apps for a Private Bank with $2B+ in Assets

Customer

The customer is Unibank, a private bank with $2 bln in assets based in Azerbaijan. Apart from repeatedly picking up such national awards as The Best Bank of Azerbaijan and Bank of the Year in Azerbaijan, the Customer was also recognized by Deutsche Bank AG London.

Challenge

To keep up with the pace of innovation and meet clients’ expectations, the Customer has been investing in mobile since 2012. Previously, Unibank released an iOS app with a number of mobile banking features, but in 2014 they decided to take the mobile banking functionality further. The Customer also strived to address a wider audience this time and chose to create two apps both for iOS and Android. Driven to make applications user-centric and to tailor dashboards accordingly, Unibank started to look for a vendor offering both Android and iOS application development services.

Solution

In December 2014, Unibank announced a tender on mobile banking app development, and ScienceSoft eagerly participated in it. Based on ScienceSoft’s experience in mobile banking, the Customer decided to start off with the test task first – that is, creating an Android version of an existing iOS application for their loyalty card. Upon the successful completion of this test task, ScienceSoft was officially chosen to develop Unibank’s iOS and Android apps.

The project began in May 2015. In the course of one month ScienceSoft's team of BAs created a detailed specification of both apps, and UI experts created slick application designs. In June 2015, our iOS and Android teams were ready to proceed to the development stage.

In February 2016, ScienceSoft completed the development and testing of both iOS and Android apps. The applications have an expanded list of highly secure features that are indispensable for today's mobile banking software. Unibank’s iOS/Android app functionality includes:

• Personal account management (balance and bank statements)
• Payments (BillPay, one-click payments, scheduled auto-payments)
• Money transfer (from card to card, from account to account)
• Online loan repayment and top-ups of deposits
• Multicurrency converter and display of up-to-date currency rates
• News and special offers from Unibank
• Contact center (by phone and chat)
• Push notifications (news and card operations)

In line with one of Unibank’s requirements, both applications display personalized information for every user. This features a user’s current balance, latest operations and upcoming auto-scheduled payments.

Both apps also have 3 handy widgets for a multicurrency converter, latest operations and Unibank’s news. Moreover, applications comply with the country's ASAN identification system for mobile services and function at a high security level.

Results

While staying on budget and time, ScienceSoft has delivered the all-round development of Unibank’s applications, from Business Analysis to release on Apple and Google Play markets. The Customer is completely satisfied with the result of our work and looks forward to new projects with ScienceSoft.

Technologies and Tools

Android: Android SDK, HockeyApp, Retrofit, OkHttp, Retrolambda, RxJava, RxAndroid, Mockito, PowerMockito, GSON Dagger 2, Cupboard, LoganSquare, JUnit, Robolectric, GCM, Timber, Crashlytics, Flurry analytics, Android Support Design, Picasso, Glide, Google Directions API, Location API.

iOS: Objective-C, Core Data, Core Location, Storyboards, Today Extensions, CocoaPods, AFNetworking, Mantle, Crashlytics, Flurry, Google Directions API.