Developing a secure FinTech application is a complicated, time-consuming, and, most importantly, expensive ordeal. And that’s if your team has relevant experience and awareness of FinTech security requirements. If it doesn’t, your project has every chance to go above and beyond the budget and time estimates.
How do you make a highly secure and compliant financial platform without wasting resources?
We provide companies with senior tech talent and product development expertise to build world-class software. Let's talk about how we can help you.
Contact usKeep reading to learn about the essential cybersecurity policies, tools, and approaches to developing a FinTech platform.
Table of Contents
Like we said earlier, developing a FinTech solution is no piece of the cake. Here are just some of the FinTech security challenges faced by organizations worldwide.
Regional FinTech security requirements
Financial technology applications must follow KYC (Know Your Customer) practices and regional data protection regulations.
For example, companies that provide financial services for European Union citizens have to abide by GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). And what if your FinTech application processes information about Japanese residents? It means your app should comply with APPI (Act on the Protection of Personal Information) as well.
Here’s the deal. Regional privacy legislation can limit the data your FinTech software can collect and process. Besides, companies need to understand how different countries interpret the same legislative concepts.
Building a secure FinTech application requires practical tools and familiarity with local regulations. Otherwise, you risk isolating yourself from specific markets.
Cybersecurity requirements for FinTech applications vary based on your company’s location and targeted markets. Let’s look at the most common regulations for data protection in the financial services industry:
FinTech security compliance with IEC 27001 requires companies to go through formal procedures and gather various documents. This is quite troublesome for most organizations. But it gets worse! ISO/IEC 27001 isn’t specific about these requirements and documents, making the process even more difficult.
Nonetheless, you can overcome this challenge with the right software development vendor. Relevant has helped companies worldwide build secure FinTech products using carefully considered frameworks and methodologies.
Cybersecurity should be your key concern during development.
However, many organizations don’t devote enough resources to make their platform safer. How else can you explain yearly record-breaking statistics for data leakages and cyber attacks?
Companies that care about their reputation and financial well-being must leverage the latest techniques and approaches to data security. What can you do to protect your business?
Let’s take a look at some of the best practices for building secure FinTech solutions.
Encryption and tokenization are incredibly effective financial security solutions.
Encryption refers to encoding information into a code that requires special keys to decipher it into a readable format. You can protect critical data with complex encryption algorithms, such as:
Tokenization is the process of replacing sensitive data with a generated number (token). You can decrypt the original information into a readable format by using unique databases (token vaults).
Want to go a step further? You can encrypt the token vault to make your application even more secure.
RBAC restricts access to the network based on the user’s relationship to the organization. For example, your application can have the following roles:
Thanks to a varying access level, ordinary employees and end-users won’t access corporate information. As a result, you will reduce internal and external security threats.
Developing an RBAC-enabled FinTech application requires significant knowledge and expertise. Therefore, you should choose a software development company with the relevant technology stack and background.
A strict password policy is imperative for FinTech security. But that’s not enough to protect your application from targeted attacks.
You should implement precise authentication technologies, such as:
Cybersecurity is not a solution. It’s an ongoing process you should integrate into the core of the SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle).
Internet security institutions register over 350,000 malicious and potentially harmful applications every day. Governmental FinTech regulations don’t stand still either. How can you keep up with the evolving FinTech cybersecurity landscape?
There’s an answer. You should use DevSecOps to create secure FinTech solutions. DevSecOps methodology makes cybersecurity an integral part of the production pipeline, including architecture design, coding, and testing phases.
Given that FinTech software requires testing throughout the development life cycle, how can you make it more effective? Here are some proven methods for building a secure FinTech platform:
Testing and audit help set up the right priorities during development. However, these processes are reliant on the expertise of developers and testers, as well as the effectiveness of their interaction.
Do you want to build secure FinTech software at a reasonable price?
Now you can see how many security challenges you have to face when building financial technology software. Undoubtedly, this raises concerns for a company without previous experience in the field.
So, how to develop a secure FinTech app with a limited budget and a “green” development team? There’s a solution. You should hire a reputable software vendor with the right tech stack and relevant expertise.
Relevant is a seasoned industry player that can build a high-grade and secure software platform from scratch. How do we deal with FinTech security concerns and regulations during development? Let’s take one of our previous projects as an example.
We built a secure FinTech SaaS (Software as a Service) platform for a UK-based company FirstHomeCoach. This app was to help buyers purchase real-estate, so it had to process financial data. Therefore, we had to integrate cybersecurity into every phase of the project’s life cycle.
Firstly, we had to define the project’s scope and boundaries. To achieve this, we needed to perform an in-depth IT security audit that would help us:
A comprehensive audit usually takes quite a long time for inexperienced teams. But we managed to accelerate this process by dividing it into four sprints (or phases). In addition to that, we supplied FirstHomeCoach with a Project Manager and two Security Officers who took the helm. Here’s how it went.
The first sprint involved requirements gathering. Our experts interviewed the client, built and validated hypotheses, and outlined the project’s scope. At the end of this phase, we had developed:
During the second sprint, our engineers performed penetration testing and reviewed results to define the Security Target State. Eventually, we moved on to the third sprint. This phase consisted of security verification and risk assessment.
At the end of the fourth, final sprint, the client had a full Security Audit report and an ISMS (Information Security Management System) policy. These documents helped us write ISO 27001 controls and Annex A policies to build a secure and compliant FinTech platform.
We use JIRA software and ISMS to manage policies, evaluate risks, and build an effective RACI matrix. Cybersecurity is woven into our Scrum processes. We optimize data flow diagrams and conduct weekly threat modeling workshops to improve risk assessment and accelerate development.
Here is what our client has to say about working with us:
Do you want to develop a secure and compliant financial technology platform for a reasonable price? Contact us to learn more about our FinTech security solutions and software development services!
If you’ve been building up a stack of AI solutions that don’t quite play nicely…
Businesses integrating AI into their workflows could unlock a transformative 40% boost in workforce productivity…
No one dreams of studying regulatory documents all day. Yet, for financial institutions, that’s exactly…