By Paola Aguirre, Head of Testing Services – Operations Management, Ecosistemas Global
In today’s fast-paced, agile development environments—particularly in the banking sector—maintaining high-quality standards for applications is essential to ensure operational stability and customer satisfaction. At Ecosistemas Global, we firmly believe that test automation plays a crucial role in achieving continuous quality.
A strong example of this is the test automation project we implemented for a leading banking institution, which led to significant improvements in development cycles and release management.
The Challenge
The main objective was to ensure the quality of web, mobile, and API applications through a robust regression testing framework. Beyond developing an efficient testing system, it had to be fully integrated with the organization’s agile processes, which involve frequent deployments of new versions. The solution also had to support multiple platforms (Android, iOS, web applications, and APIs), ensuring comprehensive coverage without compromising development speed.
The Approach
In close collaboration with the functional QA teams, we defined a comprehensive strategy to select the most relevant test cases for automation. Using tools like JUnit, TestNG, Gradle, Maven, Selenium for web, and Appium for mobile, we implemented an automation framework fully integrated into CI/CD pipelines via GitLab and Jenkins, enabling frequent, high-quality deployments.
We also leveraged Selenium Grid to support distributed and parallel test executions, significantly optimizing run times. Cucumber was used to define test cases, ensuring scalability and easy maintenance of the test suite.
Key Results
- Execution Time Reduction: Regression testing times were reduced by over 80%, enabling the release of new application versions every 15 days and providing rapid feedback on application health. Urgent releases were not deployed to production without running automated tests in QA environments.
- Increased Test Coverage: Over 200 test cases were automated for the most critical applications, raising automated coverage to 85% in key areas and reducing the risk of production failures.
- Agile API Testing: More than 60 key APIs were automated with smoke tests running in just 9 minutes, enabling daily validation of the QA environment.
- Automated Smoke Testing Integration: These smoke tests became part of the release process for every new version, running automatically with each update. This allowed for fast, effective validations and immediate issue detection.
- Time Savings: In mobile and home banking platforms, execution time dropped dramatically. For instance, 249 test cases on Android, which previously required 32 hours of manual testing, now run in only 2.5 hours—a 92.19% reduction.
This project highlights how adopting test automation technologies can transform quality assurance processes in the banking industry. With a solid automation framework in place, we were able to reduce test execution time, increase coverage, and improve the stability and reliability of banking applications. It’s a clear example of how financial institutions can leverage innovative solutions to boost efficiency and stay competitive in an agile and ever-changing landscape.
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By Paola Aguirre, Head of Testing Services – Operations Management, Ecosistemas Global
In today’s fast-paced, agile development environments—particularly in the banking sector—maintaining high-quality standards for applications is essential to ensure operational stability and customer satisfaction. At Ecosistemas Global, we firmly believe that test automation plays a crucial role in achieving continuous quality.
A strong example of this is the test automation project we implemented for a leading banking institution, which led to significant improvements in development cycles and release management.
The Challenge
The main objective was to ensure the quality of web, mobile, and API applications through a robust regression testing framework. Beyond developing an efficient testing system, it had to be fully integrated with the organization’s agile processes, which involve frequent deployments of new versions. The solution also had to support multiple platforms (Android, iOS, web applications, and APIs), ensuring comprehensive coverage without compromising development speed.
The Approach
In close collaboration with the functional QA teams, we defined a comprehensive strategy to select the most relevant test cases for automation. Using tools like JUnit, TestNG, Gradle, Maven, Selenium for web, and Appium for mobile, we implemented an automation framework fully integrated into CI/CD pipelines via GitLab and Jenkins, enabling frequent, high-quality deployments.
We also leveraged Selenium Grid to support distributed and parallel test executions, significantly optimizing run times. Cucumber was used to define test cases, ensuring scalability and easy maintenance of the test suite.
Key Results
- Execution Time Reduction: Regression testing times were reduced by over 80%, enabling the release of new application versions every 15 days and providing rapid feedback on application health. Urgent releases were not deployed to production without running automated tests in QA environments.
- Increased Test Coverage: Over 200 test cases were automated for the most critical applications, raising automated coverage to 85% in key areas and reducing the risk of production failures.
- Agile API Testing: More than 60 key APIs were automated with smoke tests running in just 9 minutes, enabling daily validation of the QA environment.
- Automated Smoke Testing Integration: These smoke tests became part of the release process for every new version, running automatically with each update. This allowed for fast, effective validations and immediate issue detection.
- Time Savings: In mobile and home banking platforms, execution time dropped dramatically. For instance, 249 test cases on Android, which previously required 32 hours of manual testing, now run in only 2.5 hours—a 92.19% reduction.
This project highlights how adopting test automation technologies can transform quality assurance processes in the banking industry. With a solid automation framework in place, we were able to reduce test execution time, increase coverage, and improve the stability and reliability of banking applications. It’s a clear example of how financial institutions can leverage innovative solutions to boost efficiency and stay competitive in an agile and ever-changing landscape.
