With advancements in technology, the global financial technology market is predicted to evolve by around 8.6% of CAGR from 2021 to 2024. This growth that we are observing in the fintech market is entirely driven by the expansion in mobile banking applications, e-commerce, the increasing popularity of online payments, and the digital compulsion that occurred because of COVID-19. All these things make Fintech draw the attention of both startups and even cybercriminals.
Therefore, fintech software development companies have to deal with susceptible business and personal information. But the main issues they face are
- data storage,
- data leakages,
- cross-platform malware contamination, and
- vulnerabilities that can often endanger the user’s data.
For this, fintech developers follow some of the basic yet important types of security measures. Therefore, in this blog, we will learn everything about fintech applications and their security measures.
What are Fintech Applications?
Fintech apps are not only related to finances like banking apps, online payment portals, and more. The speed, design, and simplicity of this kind of application are a winning mix. The fintech app possesses these qualities, and because of this, it can easily seduce any smartphone buff.
The giants in the industry understand that their numbers are rising steadily. The major players in the industry know that the presence of the mobile phone in everyone’s lives and the spending habits of people to win the customer’s loyalty.
the presence of the mobile phone in everyone’s lives and the spending habits of people
Besides, Fintech primarily focuses on companies, mainly startups working in the field of technological innovations for the banking sector. The scope of activities in such a field ranges from alternative firms’ financing through online money transferring portals to savings management, aggregators of bank accounts, loans, and more.
The main aim of fintech apps is to offer customers cheaper and better services. And this is the reason why Fintech has a disruptive effect on the fields like finance, insurance, and banking.
Top 10 Ways to Improve the Security for Fintech Apps
1. Storing Relevant Data
Storing only relevant data is an idea that works on the premise, and the reason behind it is that no one can steal sensitive information if it doesn’t exist. For example, debit and credit card numbers are not required to complete the payment procedure as the server only needs the token that can identify the billing methods, and later that amount is transferred to a different server. This means that the server dealing with the payment doesn’t necessarily have to know billing information. So, if this information is not stored in the payment server, the data cannot be leaked.
2. Defining Permission Structure
When we talk about fintech apps, the word complexity follows it as it has many features that not every user can gain access to. And for this, a proper system has to be in place to grant the permissions and set up roles. The fintech developers can take the help of techniques like role-based access control (RBAC) as it is easy to implement.
Besides this, the developers can also explore the access control list (ACL) that lists various activities that a particular user can carry out in the fintech app.
3. Maintaining Neat Logs
The activity logs of the uses must be stored neatly and systematically. The application must record all the important information like user-ID details, transaction activities, IP addresses, and geolocation. These logs are significant as the information stored in these logs can be needed to carry out postmortem analysis if there is a data breach. Therefore, maintaining logs is essential to prepare a perfect report that includes breach details, root cause analysis of the breach, and a comprehensive timeline.
4. Using Two-factor Authentication
When the fintech software development companies are looking for ways to secure the application, they should look beyond the basic authentication details like username and password to strengthen their security. So, the use of two-factor authentication is a must, and for this, one of the most used mechanisms is the one-time code through email or SMS, besides, the push notification system, which is a simple process that enables the clients to verify their identity with a single click.
5. Use Strong Passwords
When an organization is dealing with financial transactions, it must have an authentication process that is ideally in place. Username and password are the most important information that can get stolen easily, and this is why the fintech apps must demand their users to have a strong password with a combination of different characters, numbers, and letters. By enforcing such basic safety parameters, one can make the fintech application’s password strong, which can eventually help prevent the account from being hacked.
6. Employing Alternate Authentication
We know that passwords are the most common method for employed authentication, but smart cards, tokens, and even biometric systems are coming with time. With advancements in technology, retina scans and facial recognition software have also become prevalent aspects of authentication. But, a tremendously employed authentication mechanism relies on these methods and has a two-factor authentication process, which is what top fintech development companies are offering.
7. Constant Monitoring
When it comes to security, the professionals must stop suspicious transactions and be vigilant. All transactions that happen through the fintech apps must be labeled into three threats – high, medium, and low. This helps one detect the intensity of the threat. For instance, if a transaction with a high-level threat is initiated, the system must recognize it and automatically pause the activity and notify the technical team.
8. Keeping OS Updated
The majority of the fintech companies in the market use various OSs on their servers like CentOS, Windows, Ubuntu, Red Hat, and more. And they use these operating systems for different purposes. Operating systems can send regular security updates to the users as security flaws or new threats emerge, and then it is looked at by the developer community. The technical team of any fintech company must ensure that updates are instantly applied on servers to keep them safe from threats.
9. Data Backup Policy
The technical team of any fintech development company must have a proper mechanism to automatically backup the app code, data files, and other databases. Besides this, the company must decide on the frequency of the backup process, which means that they must choose the perfect time duration to take the data backup. Businesses hire such companies to get the regular backup of their data and store it systematically.
10. Non-disclosure Policies
When it comes to developing fintech app service delivery, all the parties involved in this process, like contracted security professionals, employees, data-entry operators, vendors, and more, must sign non-disclosure agreements with the firm. This enables the company to fight any attempts made by anyone to sully its brand image deliberately.
Conclusion
As seen in this blog, Fintech is the future of financial services. It has taken over the time we’re keeping a passbook. Now, users carry out all the banking-related processes sitting in their living rooms from their mobile phones. Like any other industry, Fintech also faces roadblocks in meeting compliance targets and protecting user data. And this is why fintech app development companies offer the best security features to their clients. They try to provide various businesses source-code protection like anti-debugging, app integrity protection, network packet spoofing detection tools, and more.