How to Choose a Fintech Software Development Outsourcing Partner
Having built 40+ fintech projects, the Artkai team has turned this diverse experience into a practical guide for companies that strive to choose an effective vendor for their fintech business.
As development for the financial industry has unique aspects and challenges, it’s crucial to ensure the fintech developer you select can meet them effectively. This article outlines the essential criteria and questions to help you understand how a fintech development agency approaches them, enabling you to identify a partner that is a perfect match for building your financial app.
10 Key Criteria for Choosing a Reliable Fintech Development Partner
Criteria | What to Look For |
|---|---|
Fintech Engineering & Modernization Expertise | - Experience in building and modernizing fintech platforms |
Compliance Knowledge | - Familiarity with KYC, AML, PCI-DSS, PSD2, GDPR |
Security-First Development | - Strong authentication and secure architecture |
Domain-Specific UX Expertise | - UX expertise based on financial logic |
Sub-Industry Knowledge | - Experience in neobanking, insurtech, wealthtech, lending, etc. |
Robust Data Integration | - Experience integrating market data, credit bureaus, payment systems |
Agile & Transparent Collaboration | - Agile, Scrum, or Kanban process familiarity |
Balanced Cost-to-Value Ratio | - Realistic and transparent pricing model |
Long-Term Support & Iteration Readiness | - Support after MVP or modernization launch |
Strategic Location & IP Protection | - Time zone alignment and collaboration flexibility |
Proven Fintech Engineering and Modernization Experience
Even if a development company has extensive experience in providing development services, it doesn’t automatically make it suitable for the fintech sphere. Hiring a team for fintech product development, you need a partner that understands financial-grade architecture and performance, as well as emerging and cutting-edge technologies such as AI, blockchain, and data analytics. Aware of the unique aspects of building financial apps, a fintech software development company makes wise technical choices and creates durable, cost-efficient solutions that eliminate risks of rework, compliance failures, or scalability issues.
Modernization of complex legacy products for the financial industry is also a highly challenging specialized domain. It mainly requires rebuilding the product architecture, reconsidering the legacy core, or migrating to cloud-native technologies. The successful modernization of an actively used financial technology is often more complicated than building a new fintech product from scratch. The experienced team will provide expertise, understanding how the legacy product constraints impact integration solutions.
What questions to ask:
- What design and development principles do you apply, and how do they influence product success?
- What fintech products have you built/modernized before? What tech stack did you choose for the cases and why?
- What fintech development technologies do you specialize in (e.g., AI risk models, blockchain, mobile-first architecture)?
- How do you ensure the scalability, maintainability, and future-proofness of software development solutions?
- Have you modernized legacy payment apps/banking/insurance systems before?
- How do you minimize disruption during core transitions?
- What are the before/after metrics to rely on (time-to-market, cost reduction)?
Compliance Knowledge
As the fintech sphere is heavily regulated, knowledge of this aspect is one of the keys to your vendor's effectiveness. They must understand how to comply with non-negotiable regulations, including KYC, AML, PCI-DSS, GDPR, and PSD2, and how to embed compliance in both product user experience and code.
Lack of knowledge in compliance aspects leads to delayed launches and updates, increases the risks of fines, and even worse, can become a reason for customer data breaches.
What questions to ask:
- Have you built regulated financial products before? What is your approach to compliance issues in fintech applications?
- How do you ensure compliance with industry regulations (e.g., KYC/AML, GDPR)?
- Do you collaborate with legal or compliance experts during fintech product development?
Security-First Development Approach
The importance of the security aspect can’t be overestimated in the finance industry, where even a single minor breach can destroy users’ trust and lead to trouble with the law. Choosing a partner for launching or modernizing a fintech app, ensure that strong authentication, solid secure architecture, and encrypted communications are an integral part of their fintech product development process.
What questions to ask:
- What are your standard security practices during development?
- How do you handle data encryption and secure authentication?
- Do you do penetration testing?
- Do you follow specific standards (e.g., OWASP, ISO 27001)?
Domain-Specific UX Based on Financial Logic Understanding
Fintech products mostly imply complex user experiences. Not approached thoughtfully, poor or overcomplicated interfaces cause issues, leading to lower user engagement and adoption. For most users, the complexity and inconvenience of a finance app are a critical reason for dropping it.
A vendor to rely on should understand not only the backend logic of fintech products but also UX best practices, onboarding, and transparency in financial flows that build user trust, engagement, and loyalty.
What questions to ask:
- What kind of fintech clients have you built or enhanced user experience for? What problems did you solve for them?
- Could you provide case studies or metrics showing the results reached by fintech apps you built?
- Have you built or modernized financial platforms similar to ours?
- How do you design fintech UX/UI to meet user expectations and regulatory needs?
- Can you show examples of onboarding flows, dashboards, or payment systems you’ve designed?
Relevant Sub-Industry Expertise
The financial industry is diverse and multilayered, so expertise in your sub-industry means that the developers understand the specific sub-vertical’s technical stack, compliance pressures, user behavior, and market cycles of your particular fintech domain.
Fintech software development requires diverse approaches to managing personal finances and handling complex business financial operations. User flows, tech stack, and integrations differ significantly in B2B and B2C fintech solutions. User experience and infrastructure logic of neobanking services will differ from those of loan platforms or digital wallets.
Taking this aspect into account helps you narrow down the circle of choices to find the vendor whose expertise is a perfect fit.
What questions to ask:
- Have you delivered projects in our specific domain (e.g., lending, insurtech, wealthtech)?
- What were the unique challenges in the presented sub-industry, and how did you solve them?
- Can you provide sub-industry benchmarks or ROI metrics from similar projects?
Robust Data Integration Capabilities
The success of financial technology often relies on the solidity of data pipelines and integration with various technologies. Robust data pipelines enable fintech apps to effectively aggregate and utilize data from market APIs, credit bureaus, payment processors, or partner banks, which considerably boosts business processes and improves customer experience. A development company experienced in building them will help your business take advantage of this impactful aspect.
What questions to ask:
- What APIs, data vendors, or partners have you worked with?
- How do you ensure stable and scalable integrations?
- Can you provide examples of live data pipelines you’ve built?
Agile Project Management and Transparent Collaboration
Building or modernizing a financial technology product requires tight communication, frequent feedback, and high responsibility. It involves addressing multiple points that may arise during the process and need clarification and discussion.
So, one of the keys to effective outsourcing fintech software development is agile execution, a proactive problem-solving approach, and frequent updates in a manner that is efficient for all sides of the process.
What questions to ask:
- What is your project management approach (agile, scrum, kanban)?
- How often do you provide updates to clients? What tools do you use for that?
- Who is responsible for delivery and communication on your side?
Balanced Cost-to-Value Ratio
A reasonable estimation is a core aspect of fruitful collaboration with a company that outsources software development, as it lays the foundation for process transparency and realistic expectations. Inaccurate and illogically low quotes result in rework, poor security, and other negative consequences.
The costs should be wisely grounded in relation to the product’s long-term ROI, team experience, and project scope. Your business will benefit from flexible pricing that matches your growth phase.
What questions to ask:
- What is your pricing model (T&M, fixed price, hybrid)?
- Can you work within startup or scaling-stage constraints?
- What’s included in your estimate and what’s not?
Long-Term Support and Change Management
Diversity of regulatory changes, real user feedback, and needs for further enhancements make a fintech product evolution an iterative process. It’s effectively arranged and accomplished when you partner with a company open to long-term collaboration, genuinely interested in product growth, and offering a transparent process for product enhancement and change management after launching your MVP or a modernized fintech product.
What questions to ask:
- How do you handle post-launch iteration and feature backlog management?
- Do you provide product maintenance, optimization, or monitoring support?
- Can you evolve the roadmap based on user and compliance feedback?
Strategic Location
The location of your fintech development outsourcing partner directly affects productivity and the smoothness of the tie-up. In particular, it influences time zones, collaboration efficiency, IP rights, and compliance with regional laws. Clarifying these aspects before collaboration begins is crucial for finding a development partner who can ensure the legal protection of your company’s and your product users’ data and effectively support your business operations.
What questions to ask:
- Where is your core team located?
- Are you aware of the legal, tax, or data protection frameworks of your location region?
- How do you ensure IP protection and contract transparency?
Artkai's benefits as a fintech software development partner
Over the years, here at Artkai, we have built multiple fintech software products for our clients that range from personal finance management apps and digital wallets to complex lending platforms, online banking, and investment tools.
So, with our diverse expertise and practical experience in the domain, and based on our clients’ feedback, we outline the benefits you can gain by hiring Artkai as a fintech software development partner.
- Predictable delivery. Creating or improving digital products for our clients, we take full ownership of what we build, including key architectural decisions. With a systemic approach and thought-out, realistic estimations, through transparent processes, clear communication, and disciplined execution, the stakeholders are guaranteed delivery on time and on budget. Thorough discovery and research enable us to define requirements and risks, thereby saving you time and money by avoiding costly development changes later.
- Proven track record with real fintech projects. Artkai has provided fintech software development services for a range of clients, from fintech startups to established companies, with over 40 fintech case studies demonstrating measurable improvements in user engagement, security, compliance, and revenue growth. Many clients regard us as a strategic partner, supporting their fintech product evolution and business growth for years with deep domain expertise and knowledge of the logic and regulations of financial products, from KYC flows and PCI compliance to interchange fees and embedded lending.
- Large-scale automation. Mature processes and innovative tools ensure that your fintech company receives a high-quality development process that is provided quickly and efficiently. Well-tested automation schemes and integrations applied wisely to complex enterprise-level products enable our clients to significantly enhance their fintech application progress and speed up updates to stay highly competitive.
- Agile collaboration and transparent communication. A close cooperation built on agile methodologies guarantees the client’s team receives regular updates, quick feedback loops, and complete transparency. With Artkai, the fintech company gains an embedded partner that easily adapts to the client’s workflow, adjusting communication style and speed to be comfortable for the client’s team.
- User-centric mindset and custom solutions. With a focus on building products around people rather than just features, our clients’ fintech apps get intuitive and learnable user experiences that solve real problems, are scalable, and ensure long-term customer loyalty. Instead of relying on standard approaches, fine-tuned solutions meet the specific goals the business sets for its fintech software product. In each case, the discovery, design, and development approach correspond to the client’s business model and capacities, user base, and market objectives.
- Experience in sub-domains and specific local markets. Through various fintech projects for clients in the USA and Europe, Artkai’s team can provide you with a deep understanding of the specific limitations and regulations common to different local financial services markets. The fintech businesses also gain access to a vendor with experience in developing globally functioning fintech products tailored to specific markets, such as solutions for ProCredit Bank.
- Multichannel, scalable solutions. Fintech software development often involves building multi-platform, multi-role systems, for example, enterprise-scale banking apps with a variety of touchpoints. Our clients in the domain take advantage of Artkai’s expertise in that aspect. Your fintech product is built or improved with a well-informed approach to creating future-proof design systems, product architecture, and tech stacks that are ready to scale and adapt to the actual demands of the market and are cost-efficient for you.
Bottom Line
Selecting a reliable fintech development outsourcing partner to accompany your product evolution is a challenging decision, extending beyond merely finding a coding team. We hope this article helps you consider the key factors in finding a trusted and reliable partner like Artkai, who can bring valuable expertise and fintech knowledge to boost your financial software and support business growth.
In case you want to dive deeper and discuss collaboration on building a competitive, user-friendly, and secure fintech product, Artkai’s team is ready to support you. Contact us and let’s talk.
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