How To Test Retail Banking System

The title says it all. Today’s article is going to be an all round, “How-to” on testing Retail banking system. Come on along.

Introduction to Retail Banking:

It refers to the banking that executes direct transactions with consumers/customers rather than corporations / companies or other banks. 

Retail banking is also known as Consumer banking. It provides different banking services like savings account, current account, check transactions, credit cards, online banking, loans etc. to fulfil individual customer requirements.

The main activity of retail banking is to accept deposits from one customer and lend credit to other customers in the form of loans. It is all about making different asset products and liability products available to customers. This has grown widely in the last few years.

Recommended reads =>

• How to Test Banking Applications
• How to Test Investment Banking Application

Functions in Retail banking:

• Front End Banking
• Back End Banking
• Channel Banking

Services in Front End Banking:

#1) Account opening:

Account opening plays a vital role in banking. To proceed with any services in retail banking an account should be opened.

Following is the process to open an account.

#2) Teller Transactions:

In general terms, teller means “Cashier”. Below are the two types of teller transactions.

• Cash Transactions: This type of transaction does:
  • Cash deposit/withdrawal – Account holder asking the teller to deposit or withdraw cash from his/her account.
  • Currency note exchange – Exchanging the foreign currency to local currency or local currency to foreign currency as per the customer’s request.
• Non-cash Transactions: This type of transaction does:
  • Standing instructions – A customer instructing the bank to pay the set of an amount to the other customer for a fixed/indefinite time period at a particular regular interval frequency.
  • Transfers – Transferring the amount from one account to another account.

#3) Liability products:

• Savings account: Savings bank account is generally opened by salaried individuals or those who have a fixed regular income. Commercial banks, co-operative banks and postal departments accept deposits by way of an opening saving bank account. Below are the main features of savings account:
  • Minimum balance should be maintained.
  • Pays interest as per the balance.
  • There are restrictions on transfers and withdrawals.
• Current account: In current account, the amount can be deposited and withdrawn at any time without giving any notice. It is also suitable for making payments to creditors by using cheques. The current account can be opened in co-operative and commercial banks. Below are the main features of current account:
  • Overdraft facility is available.
  • There are no restrictions on transfers and withdrawals.

#4) Remittances: Transferring money from one account to another account using below options

• Electronic form:
  • Electronic fund transfer is nothing but transferring money through online banking system from one account to another account via NEFT/RTGS.
  • Telegraphic Transfer is done abroad which means transferring money online from the account of one country to the account in another country. Generally, transfer charges will be applicable to the sender’s account by sending bank. There won’t be transfer charges for receiving banks. But in very rare cases receiving banks could charge some amount.
• Non-Electronic form:
  • Demand draft / check: These are one of the oldest negotiable instruments used in the banking system for transfer of money in paper form with a clearing mechanism.

#5) Cards: Listed below are different types of cards.

• Debit cards: Debit card is integrated with automated teller machine (ATM) and point of sale (POS) features. Whenever a customer uses the above options, the amount will be debited directly from his/her bank account.
• Smart cards: It stores cash in an electronic form which is embedded with an integrated circuit.
• Credit cards: It gives freedom to “pay later” if an emergency comes up or if you need something and don’t have the money at that point of time, credit cards are very useful. Once the statement is generated minimum amount can be paid.
• Charge cards: This is the same as a credit card, except that the card payment cannot be deferred. This is a card which requires full payment upon statement generation.
• Below is how to read a card.

#6) Asset Products: Asset product is nothing but a debt given by the bank to a customer. Here, the bank is a lender and customer will be a borrower.

Loans are classified as below:

• Secured loans: In this type of loans, collateral will be given by the borrower to the lender as a security at the time of borrowing money, which is in turn used by the lender to recover loan amount from the borrower. For example: In Mortgage loans, house property documents are provided as security. In Vehicle loans, vehicle documents are provided as security, etc.
• Unsecured loans: In this type of loans there will not be any collateral as a security by the borrower to the lender. For example Educational loan, personal loan in which borrower cannot produce any collateral as a security to the lender.

Back end Banking:

It mainly deals with checks i.e., check truncation, clearing and settlement.

Below shows how a check looks like and detailed information of a check.

(Note: Click on any image  for enlarged view)

#1) Check Truncation is the settlement of clearing transactions on the basis of images and electronic data without any physical movement of the instruments.

#2) Clearing & Settlement:

• Inward clearing: All checks drawn on our bank and deposited with other banks are received through clearing, and applied to the drawer’s accounts is inward clearing. Process of inward clearing is all instruments are matched against the respective account balances as well as status (stopped, used, etc) and then passed or rejected by the system
• Outward clearing: Checks deposited and drawn on another bank, which have been sorted and are presented to clearing is known as outward clearing. The process of outward clearing is a group of checks packaged, sent to the clearing house or federal reserve office and a cash letter is accompanied by a list containing the amount of each check , the total amount of checks and the number of checks.

#3) Check clearing process:

Check clearing process is shown below:

Services in Channel Banking:

#1) Mobile Banking

• Mobile banking includes alerts and transactions.
• As customer registers his/her mobile number during account opening he/she can receive alerts to the mobile, like credit/debit alerts, account balance alerts, bill payment alerts
• The customer can also perform operations like funds transfer, bill payment, account balance enquiry, etc.

#2) Internet Banking

• Internet banking is nothing but online banking in which customer will be logging into the banking website.
• This includes transactions like funds transfer, bill payments, cheque book requests, enquiries, mutual fund, insurance, etc.

#3) ATM Banking

• Automated Teller Machine banking involves an ATM machine where customer can insert a debit/credit card into it and withdraw cash
• This also includes transaction like enquiries, cash deposit into the account, etc.

#4) Point of sale (POS)

• Point of sale is used in stores where a customer pays the amount through debit/credit card instead of cash.
• An invoice will be generated which indicates that payment is done by the customer for the goods purchased.

Test Scenarios for Retail Banking:

Below is the sample screenshots related to retail banking application:

#1) Sample screenshot to open a savings bank account with local currency.

#2) Sample screenshot to open a savings bank account with foreign currency.

#3) Sample screenshot to open a current account.

#4) Sample screenshot to transfer amount from one account to another account.

#5) Sample screenshot for teller transaction – cash deposit local

#6) Sample screenshot for teller transaction – cash withdrawal local

#7) Sample screenshot for adding payee and transferring through channel banking

Positive test scenarios for banking applications:

1) Verify if the customer details are available in the application before creating an account.

2) Verify all mandatory fields like customer ID, currency, product code, etc. are entered to open an account

3) When opening savings or current banking account verify the product code is selected appropriately.

For example, when you are opening a current account select product code appropriate to current account and when you are opening a saving bank account select a product code appropriate to the savings account.

4) When opening an account verify the currency is selected appropriately i.e., either local or foreign currency.

For example, if you are opening a local savings account then select currency as INR and if you are opening a foreign savings account  then select a foreign currency.

5) While transferring amount from one account to another account verify all the mandatory fields are entered, such as debit amount, debit account number, credit amount, credit account number, etc.

6) For telegraphic transfer verify debit currency and credit currency is different.

7) For teller transactions like cash deposit or withdrawal verify credit amount or debit amount is entered correctly. Also, verify all the denominations entered are matched with total debit or credit amount.

8) Verify check details are captured in the retail banking application by entering check number, amount, customer, etc.

9) Verify inward clearing is done by providing details like debit amount, the debit account and credit account.

10) Verify outward clearing is done by providing details like credit amount, credit account and debit account.

11) Verify all the card details like card number, valid through, customer, etc. are encrypted and stored in the system as it is very sensitive data.

12) Verify if a payee can be added through channel banking by providing all the mandatory details like account name, Account number, etc.,

13) Verify if the account transfer is done successfully through channel banking by providing all the mandatory details like transaction type, amount and from an account for an existing payee.

14) Verify whether messages are received once a transaction is done through channel banking.

15) Verify collateral details are given while creating a secured loan.

16) Verify collateral details are not given while creating an unsecured loan.

Negative test scenarios:

1) Verify creation of an account with invalid customer details.

2) Verify creation of an account by not selecting a product code or any of the mandatory fields.

3) Verify creating a savings banking account by entering product code as current account and vice versa.

4) Verify creating a local currency account by entering foreign currency amount and vice versa.

5) Verify telegraphic transfer by giving debit currency and credit currency as same. It will be a normal account transfer and not a telegraphic transfer.

6) Verify teller transaction cash withdrawal by entering credit amount and vice versa.

7) Verify teller transaction by providing the invalid denominations.

For example, if credit or debit amount is 150 then provide denomination for 100 as 1 and denomination for 50 as 2. The system should not allow proceeding with the transaction.

8) Verify if a payee can be added through channel banking by providing an account name which is not matched to the account number.

For example, if the account name is Sita and account number is 12345, then for testing this scenario provide Rama as account name and account number as 12345. System should not allow adding a new payee as account name and number are not matching

9) Verify if a payee can be added through channel banking by providing invalid IFSC code.

10) Verify if a payee can be added through channel banking by not providing any of the mandatory fields.

11) Verify if an account transfer through channel banking is done by not providing any of the mandatory fields.

12) Verify if a message is received when a wrong mobile number is provided.

13) Provide collateral details while creating an unsecured loan.

For example, when you’re creating an educational loan, provide mortgage details as collateral. The system should not accept to create an educational loan with mortgage details.

14) While creating a secured loan do not provide collateral details.

For example, when you’re creating a mortgage loan or vehicle loan, do not provide collateral details. The system should not allow proceeding further.

Related => What is Negative Testing and How to Write Negative Test Cases?

Performance testing scenarios:

1) Verify different user’s login to the same retail banking application using different systems at same time.

2) Verify user can able to log into the retail banking application within few seconds by providing valid user id and password.

3) Verify logging into the application when the server is down.

Also read => Introduction to Performance testing

Security testing scenarios:

1) Try logging into the retail banking application by providing valid user ID and password and verify password field is encrypted.

2) Verify logging into the retail banking application by providing invalid user ID or password.

3) Verify logging into the application by providing one of the fields- userID or password as blank.

Also read => An approach for Security Testing of Web Applications

Tips for testing retail banking application:

• It is important to know the retail banking terminologies to start with testing of this type of an application.
• The tester should mainly concentrate on the test data that is being created or used while testing. For example, the tester should be able to provide proper customer details or account details, etc for creating a savings account, current account or a loan account.
• Also, it is important for a tester to know the functionality of check processing while testing check transactions like inward or outward clearing.

Conclusion:

In the current world, Retail banking applications are very important as every individual is involved directly or indirectly with it.

With simple functionality and test scenarios provided above, a tester can start testing retail banking application.

What are your tips/suggestions for testing banking applications? We’d love to hear all about them in the comments!