Banking web app for money transfers and merchant analytics

Innowise developed a complex SaaS platform from scratch that allows for money transfers and tracking analytics.

Customer

Industry

Banking, Retail

Region

USA

Client since

2021

Our customer is a big sales organization that looked for banking software development services with the opportunity to integrate the developed solution into a financial ecosystem with a partner bank to serve corporate clients.

Detailed information about the client cannot be disclosed under the provisions of the NDA.

Challenge

The FinTech sector is constantly evolving, offering customers convenient and robust software for banks. Considering our client had low-level automation of merchant services with mainly manual execution, we suggested a turnkey app that withstands high server loads and is easy to scale up. The primary purpose was to deliver and smoothly integrate software for payment processing into the partner bank ecosystem to serve clients in B2B and B2C segments.

As a result, the customer approached Innowise, looking for a solution to conduct instant money transactions and receive representative merchant statistics in the form of graphics and diagrams. Additionally, the customer suggested compiling an administrative panel to provide access to different system components based on users’ roles and responsibilities.

Solution

Our team developed a custom multi-functional SaaS platform from scratch based on customers' recommendations and tech requirements that included three modules.

Payment system

The client has partnered with a bank, committing money transfers in a hassle-free and reliable ACH format. Simply put, the developing app is supposed to process the incoming financial steams into the compatible ACH format and create appropriate files in databases. Afterward, all the accumulated files are then transmitted to the banking SFTP server which executes them. All in all, our goal was to develop an application that deals with the AHC format smoothly as follows:

splitting transactions with big sums into several smaller operations;
accomplishing transactions with addenda records (popular for corporate payments with supplemental data needed to identify an account holder);
conducting planned transactions (that will be executed in the next few days).

Also, our team developed a system of notifications about the transactions’ current statuses and their successful completion.

As for the front-end, we have built an interface that includes the algorithm for uploading a CSV transaction file through the website, a mechanism for creating payment templates and uploading CSV directly to the server database.

All the above-mentioned operations are executed instantly or are pre-scheduled. To ensure transactions’ reliability, we implemented validation scenarios like checking bank accounts using ABA algorithms and revising the number of addends. Overall, our team carried out about 25-30 validations for each type of transaction. Moreover, we attained an explicit level of security thanks to additional file encryption, SFTP configuration, and private server network utilization. One of the customer’s key requirements was the service’s withstanding a load of thousands of money transfers simultaneously without the risk of crashing. As a result, we employed the concurrency principle and enforced the platform with AWS Lambda. For instance, this allowed for the simultaneous execution of 200 files from 200 different queries. If the number of simultaneous operations exceeds 10 000 at one time, they will be queued.

Analytics system

Before our customer opted for Innowise, they had an extensive database of clients that conducted money transactions almost daily. Nonetheless, the previous banking software could not aggregate statistics/analytics to have transparent data about merchant dynamics. The solution we have created enables corporate bank clients to receive merchant data analytics in the form of graphs and diagrams.

In the personal account, a user can track personal statistics such as gross sales, net settlements, network fees, interchange, and refunds. Viewing all transactions and filtering them by type (approved or declined transactions, refunds, open chargebacks, etc.), card type (VISA, MasterCard, etc.), or period of time (day or week) are also available.

Admin panel

Last but not least, our vetted team built an admin panel where bank managers can add new users (individuals or companies) and give access to various system components. Thus, new members receive a notification via email confirming successful registration. An admin, in turn, can also permit, restrict, or prohibit access as well as track various parameters like the number of transactions, their statuses, etc.

Technologies & tools

Back-end

Python3, FastAPI, SQLAlchemy, boto3, AWS-CLI, AWS-CDK, pysftp, aiodynamo, Pandas, PyJWT, Docker, Kubernetes

Front-end

JavaScript, TypeScript, HTML5, CSS3, React, Redux, React Router, React Charts, Material UI

Cloud

AWS RDS(PostgreSQL), S3, DynamoDB, Lambda, ECR, ECS, SNS, SQS, IAM, CloudFront

VCS

Bitbucket

Process

Our seasoned team compiled the payment processing software for banks, going through all the stages of the SDLC to deliver a customized product that does not have analogs in the market.

During the discovery phase, our BA and Architect clarified the main customer’s objectives and defined technical and business requirements. The team also evaluated the overall project’s scope, workload, and cost.

Then our front-end, back-end experts, and DevOps started building the architecture and business logic of three main modules – Payment system, Admin panel, and Analytics system. Our software engineer chose Python as the primary development tool since it has a powerful Spark framework to handle big volumes of data, is compatible with cloud solutions, and is easy to scale up.

The team worked using Scrum methodology with regular 3-4 week sprints and permanent communication with customers on intermediate results via Slack. The PM assigned tasks and tracked the project’s progress in Jira.

Documentation was kept in Confluence, while repositories were stored in Bitbucket.

The most challenging part of the project Innowise coped with was ensuring the safety of the transactions to exclude the risk of fraud. We had to deliver a solution that turns various types of transactions into AHS format without losing processing speed.

Below is a scheme that explains the solution’s architecture.

Team

Business Analyst

Project Manager

Back-end Developers

Front-end Developers

Data Engineer

Software Architect

DevOps

QA Specialists

Results

Summing up, our skilled team delivered a robust turnkey solution that facilitates the work of our client with a corporate bank. The web platform includes three modules that streamline money transfers and make the life of banking managers easier. The number of mistakes has reduced considerably since much of the manual work is digitized.

The payment system provides safe instant money transfers in B2B and B2C segments in ACH format. A transparent analytics system allows for reviewing and analyzing transactions through graphics and diagrams. And finally, our developers introduced an admin panel to add new users and provide access based on their roles and responsibilities.

The developed platform boasts enhanced security and withstands big loads with no freezes and glitches due to optimized load distribution. In addition to functionality, the service has an intuitive design to navigate with ease.

Project duration

December 2021 - July 2022
The project is finished

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