text: This months author: Laura Philbin, Head of Operations at Assured Thought
  In this month's blog, Assured Thought's Laura Philbin shares carefully curated expert advice to help senior wealth and asset management technology leaders implement gold-standard software testing.
  At Assured Thought, we understand the challenges you face when developing and implementing financial services applications. It's a highly competitive industry, and ensuring reliability, security and user-friendliness – all while meeting stringent regulatory requirements, of course – is crucial for success.
  For this article, I've polled our experts in order to share five key testing best practices for wealth and asset management companies.
  By implementing these best practices, you'll be able to ensure your company's applications are reliable, secure and user-friendly; streamline your development process, reduce risks, and help your company achieve its business goals.
  1) Embrace risk-based testingBecause the financial sector is inherently risky, it's essential to identify and prioritise risks during software development. A risk-based testing strategy will allow you to focus on the most critical application components and functionalities first, and so more effectively allocate your company's resources to mitigate the most significant risks.
  2) Adopt Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD)In today's fast-paced digital environment, it's vital for your company to stay agile and responsive to change. By adopting a CI/CD pipeline, your development team can automate testing and deployment, ensuring your applications are always high quality and up-to-date. By making testing part of the development process, you'll be able to identify and fix issues quickly – and reduce the likelihood of costly problems down the road.
  3) Prioritise security testingBecause your company's applications need to handle sensitive data – and comply with strict regulations – penetration testing and vulnerability assessments should be integral to your development process. By investing in regular security testing, you'll minimise the risk of data breaches and protect your clients' information, maintaining not only their trust but also your company's reputation.
  4) Focus on usability and performanceProviding an exceptional user experience is crucial for both internal users and client satisfaction. Thorough usability and performance testing will ensure your applications are user-friendly, intuitive and responsive. By identifying bottlenecks and areas for improvement, you'll be able to meet the high standards expected by your internal teams – and keep your clients happy.
  5) Cultivate communication and collaborationTo successfully test your company's software, you'll need a communicative and collaborative team. By encouraging your team members to share their knowledge and expertise – and by establishing regular feedback loops to address issues as they arise – you'll foster that culture of communication and collaboration. When your team can continually learn, adapt, and improve their testing processes, your company will achieve higher-quality applications and better business outcomes.
  For more expert advice from Assured Thought, the QA and testing provider of the financial services industry, click here: https://assuredthought.com/contact-us/