Financial services are no longer limited to desktop computers, local servers, and paper-based payroll systems. Both financial departments within businesses and specialized fintech companies are all in dire need of digital transformation.
Thus, companies often opt for hiring financial software developers. But how to find the professionals that will develop an innovative solution? And where to look for such experts? Discover in the article.
How to find a vendor to hire financial software developers?
Let’s break down the key steps you should go through to choose a trusted vendor and hire top financial software developers.
1. Define your business needs
First, you need to match the needs of your business to the overall goals and vision of the future. This is vital to ensure the success of your cooperation with a software development provider. With the help of a trusted vendor, you can, for instance:
- Digitally transform your business;
- Introduce a new service or solution;
- Automate mundane operations;
- Migrate to a new platform;
- Improve process visibility;
- Optimize performance of existing systems;
- Tackle a complex business challenge or find a solution to an existing problem;
- Conquer a new vertical with a new service.
No matter what your aim is, make sure to choose the vendor that can help you bring these business objectives to life.
2. Establish the selection criteria
To find a trusted software development provider, you have to know exactly what you are looking for. So, you need to set the vendor selection criteria. These criteria are based on your specific business requirements and the expertise you seek in the vendor-to-be. These should be:
- Understanding of the industry;
- Proven track record of working with similar businesses;
- References, reviews, and testimonials from clients;
- Any other aspects you consider important.
3. Make a long list of potential partners
When compiling such a list of financial software development vendors, here’s what you need to consider:
- Outsourcing destination: Look for a location with a decent number of vendors, sufficient tech talent pool, and a good reputation;
- The number of employees: Focus on vendors with at least 250+ specialists. Smaller companies might not be able to staff or scale up quickly enough;
- Market experience: Include companies with over five years of market presence. Such vendors typically have more experience in developing complex solutions for their clients;
- Client reviews: Use directories like Clutch to make up the list of your potential partners. Such websites verify the information, conduct interviews, and publish only genuine testimonials, so this information is objective. You can see the Leaders Matrix of fintech development companies (as of the moment of writing).
4. Shortlist the chosen financial software development companies
Once you have a long list of companies, it’s time to look at them and narrow down the list. This brings us to your business needs. When searching for a fintech software development company, it's vital to look for a vendor with a portfolio of projects in your domain and the technical expertise needed to carry them out. This aspect brings us to the next step of choosing a trusted vendor.
5. Analyze their portfolio and case studies
As we have already mentioned, the fintech software development market is evolving in various directions and requires different expertise. So, we cannot cover all business verticals in a single article. But here are some examples of the expertise you can look for in your fintech software development company:
Fraud prevention
The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) report states that an average fraud costs an organization more than $1.5M. However, the financial aspect is only a share of the overall impact that a security attack has on a business. Fraud hampers customer experience, damages company reputation, brings about operational failures, etc.
Thus, technical solutions that allow companies to identify and prevent unauthorized financial activity, identify theft, cyber hacking, insurance scams, etc. are essential for fintech businesses.
Open banking
New European standards require banks to share account data with regulated third-party providers for payment initiation. This step aims at seamless integrations, streamlined processes, and actionable insights available within seconds that are protected from cyber threats. With open banking APIs, financial institutions can use banking data to make more informed decisions faster.
So, having a tech partner with such expertise will help optimize your business processes and enhance your services.
Robust security expertise
The fintech industry works with sensitive information (cardholder information, passport data, customers’ transactions, etc.) So, security is vital when cooperating with a financial software development company. To ensure the security of your data, your potential partner needs experience in:
- End-to-end encryption. The end-to-end encryption method ensures a secure transfer of payment information, preventing third parties from accessing the data and deciphering it. This expertise is vital to ensure the high security of your fintech project that deals with sensitive data.
- A hardware security module. A device that manages digital keys, encrypts and decrypts functions for digital signatures, and provides strong authentication is an integral part of the E2E chain.
- Tokenization. This is another level of security that prevents the use (transmitting, storing, and processing) of sensitive data, replacing it with tokens to perform financial transactions securely.
6. Look for client feedback and testimonials
Out of more than 20K vendors listed on Clutch, only 6K have reviews. The lack of reviews from clients anywhere is a disturbing sign.
Check the company’s website. Look for long text reviews, video testimonials, and collaboration details. We also recommend to google the company and check reviews online. This might clarify what a typical project for this firm looks like, how they tackle challenges, and whether they can deliver the required results.
7. Check certifications, partnerships, memberships, and awards
If you plan to find a trusted financial development partner, make sure you deal with the one with all the needed qualifications. For example, every reliable company should have at least basic ISO certifications (9001 and 27001). If your company deals with payment processing, you might need PCI DSS compliance. If you need cloud specialists, the vendor should have partnership status with at least one primary Cloud provider (AWS, Azure, or GCP).
It is also a good sign if you can find the company in the international ratings, such as Global Outsourcing 100 (which recognizes the best outsourcing companies).
So, these are the steps that will help you choose a trusted partner. But the question remains: where to search for one. Let’s take a look.
Where to look for a financial software development company?
The UK and US tech talent market is currently experiencing a shortage of qualified engineers, and the competition for them is fierce. Meanwhile, Eastern Europe offers an untapped talent pool that is continuously growing. Therefore, many businesses partner with financial software development companies from the region.
Experts from Eastern Europe have the necessary domain knowledge and expertise in developing fintech solutions for digital banking, money transfers, personal finance management, risk & compliance management, and much more.
However, finding a reliable and trusted partner is difficult for those fintechs that want to outsource financial software development to a third-party vendor. Therefore, we’ve compiled a list of the best fintech outsourcing vendors in Eastern Europe. To help you select the right partner that will be able to fulfill your particular requirements, we created a list based on the following criteria.
- To start with, we searched for the best financial software development companies in Eastern Europe. We focused on mid- and large-size vendors staffing 250+ employees. These enterprises usually have more talent accessible at the moment, as well as optimized development processes. However, since most of the destination’s tech enterprises are small-size vendors, the most credible companies in that category will also be included in our list.
- To provide you with the most credible vendors, we have selected companies with no less than three reviews on Clutch. Furthermore, we included only vendors with high (4.6+/5) review scores.
- The engineering enterprises on our list have 10+ years of experience in financial software development services.
- Our catalog contains only companies with a proven record of fruitful collaborations with foreign clients.
Financial software developers in Ukraine
Outsourcing to Ukraine gives you access to the talent pool of experts with multi-dimensional expertise. The country has enough specialists to fill both managerial and technical positions. According to LinkedIn, the number of financial software developers reached 60K, with around 12% having the Senior qualification level.
1. N-iX
N-iX is a financial software development company employing over 2,200 skilled tech specialists. N-iX has delivery centers across Eastern Europe in Poland, Bulgaria, and Ukraine. Over 20+ years of international market presence, the vendor established long-term relationships with market leaders in manufacturing, healthcare, agriculture, fintech, and many more domains.
This vendor will help you optimize your business processes, keep up with the increasing competition, and upgrade the quality of services. N-iX financial software developers will develop a secure solution in any finance-related domain, including (InsurTech), payments gateways, regulatory (RegTech), and others.
The vendor’s Ukrainian teams continue to operate effectively even after the outbreak of the full-scale Russian invasion. The company manages to keep the service delivery at 92-95%.
2. Beetroot AB
Founded in 2012, this financial software development firm unites 600+ professionals across Ukraine and Sweden. Their core specialization is IT staff augmentation, custom software development, and mobile application development. The vendor has partnered with such businesses as Abilia Aktiebolag, Admentum, Aducera Holding AB, Internet Vikings, and more.
Read more: Everything you need to know about software developers in Sweden
3. ELEKS
The company develops asset and identity management solutions, risk modeling, and blockchain. Also, it offers research, development, and support services for data management, investment accounting, performance measurement, and attribution. It has partnered with such financial companies as Commonwealth Network and KMP Group.
4. Sigma Software
The software development company develops loan and debt management solutions, mobile payments, invoicing, cost management, and reporting. It has partnered with a large European Bank and the First Ukrainian International Bank.
5. Infopulse
The company offers software development services for digital & mobile banking, big data & analytics, infrastructure operations, and others. It has developed solutions for ZenCash, ING Bank, and more.
Financial software developers in Poland
Poland is another attractive destination for finding a financial software development company. There are more than 491,000 Polish professionals engaged in the ITC sector, 157,000+ of them working in the IT branch. Moreover, the country is home to over 375 software development vendors offering solutions for the finance business vertical.
Let’s take a closer look at some of them.
6. QBurst
This company specializes in CRM, big data and analytics, and cloud-based solutions. The vendor uses various business intelligence tools to build fintech data management and analysis solutions. Moreover, it develops online banking applications and content management solutions for updating audit documents, managing records, and preserving documents.
7. Netguru
This financial software development vendor specializes in Ruby on Rails development, one of the critical technologies used in fintech. The company has built many projects for the financial, security, and insurance industries. The vast majority of this vendor’s clients are businesses of medium size.
8. Intetics Inc.
This company has extensive expertise in a wide range of domains, including finance, education, healthcare, logistics, life sciences, insurance, and others. Their core focus in terms of partnerships is midsized businesses. The vendor can help you with the solutions like AI and automation for banking, quantum computing, and advanced data analytics.
9. Itransition
The financial software development company is one of the largest vendors that have R&D centers in Poland. They provide custom software solutions to financial and fintech organizations, including banks, credit unions, and all types of enterprises that look to establish digitally-enabled financial processes. The vendor can help you with fintech software development, fintech software integration, and fintech security compliances.
10. iTechArt Group
The core expertise of this vendor is financial software development. With over 20 years of experience and 3,500+ developers on board, the company can help you with a wide range of services, including data analytics, personal finance solutions, and many others. They have partnered with companies such as DealCloud, StoneX, and barchart.
Financial software developers in Bulgaria
The Bulgarian tech talent pool unites around 29,000 professionals engaged in the IT domain. The local IT market comprises 78 financial software development companies.
11. Qaiware
The Bulgarian software development company focuses on fintech development and has a few exciting projects in its portfolio. The IT vendor specializes in such technologies as Ruby, AngularJS, PHP, iOS, and Android.
12. Dreamix
This IT outsourcing and consultancy company specializes in building solutions for insurance, financials, telecommunications, aviation, governmental, and healthcare industries. It has partnered with such fintech companies as RBS WorldPay and BNP Paribas.
Financial software developers in Romania
Romania is another notable destination for finding a reliable financial software development partner. It houses almost 192,000 experts employed in the ITC sphere. We selected the fintech development companies, according to their portfolio and market presence.
13. Software Minds
This is one of the vendors where you can hire financial software developers in Eastern Europe that has been on the market for more than 20 years. Its industry expertise includes web, mobile, and cloud-based development for financial, telecommunications, and many other business verticals. About 50% of the vendor’s engineering efforts are dedicated to financial services. They cooperate with businesses of all sizes but focus on middle-sized companies.
14. ASSIST Software
This is a software development company with a big engineering team in Suceava. Apart from fintech services, this vendor works with businesses in healthcare, education, consumer products and goods, gaming, and other business verticals. They can help you with such services as product design and consulting, custom software development, testing, and validation, as well as team augmentation.
15. Zitec
The tech portfolio of this software development company comprises 650+ projects delivered for clients across multiple regions (USA, Western Europe, Romania, and The Middle East) operating in a variety of industries, such as fintech, tourism, hospitality, education, retail, logistics, transportation, and e-commerce.
Wrap-up
A lot of European financial software development companies offer deep fintech expertise and a good track record of fintech projects. It comes as no surprise that there is a growing number of fintech companies that choose to outsource to financial software developers in Europe to reasonably use the raised funds and find in-demand engineering talent.