Project Summary
Nedgroup Investments developed the first end-to-end digital investment platform in South Africa, Extraordinary Life.
Multiple expert teams collaborated to develop the solution, which provides a paper-free, chatbot-based investment platform to South Africans who might not have been able to make investments with confidence before. The platform integrated multiple technologies and needed a complex architecture and automation strategy.
Through the early integration of software testing into the development process, the project saw a reduction of 70% in testing time and development to implementation.
Company
Nedgroup Investments
Industry
Banking, Insurance and Capital Markets
Location
South Africa
Solution
Test Automation with Behaviour Driven Development (BDD), Microsoft Azure BOT Framework
Client Overview
Nedgroup Investments’ Extraordinary Life is a digital automated savings platform. At launch, it was one of the first end-to-end digital journeys in South Africa. Its paperless process allows users to receive an investment recommendation, onboard themselves, invest, and see their holdings, all within 10 minutes.
The platform is a blend of technologies integrating AI, chatbot, investment algorithms, and Web and API development. Extraordinary Life utilises an intelligent chatbot (based on Microsoft’s Azure BOT Framework) that collects information from customers in a convenient and conversational way, which helps with trust and simplicity.
The project went on to win the 2018 Financial Times Banker Tech Award in the category of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics.
Problem statement
The client needed a product that is robust and market-worthy. The product was developed through the collaboration of multiple teams with different areas of expertise, spread across the globe. The complex investment models, covering 1 000 000 data points over 1 000 future scenarios, changes to functionality, and chatbot conversational flow all had to be tested.
Solution
After consultation, the product owner agreed to include software testing from the start of the project. Behaviour Driven Development, an approach that emphasises the development of features based on a user story and writing code that provides solutions to real problems, was introduced to ensure that test automation efforts covered the acceptance criteria.
Test automation efforts were guided by clear architecture and strategy as set out by Inspired Testing’s experts. Test automation played a critical role in the overall test strategy, executing against all environments including production.
Before improvement
A complex and innovative platform that needed expert and extensive software testing to ensure a robust and marketable product.
After improvement
An award-winning platform was introduced to the market, backed by a 70% reduction in testing time and development-to-implementation time through test automation.
Benefit to the client after implementation
According to Donna Barnes, the business product owner, the results were real: a 70% reduction in testing time and development to implementation with test automation. “Thanks to a team effort and technology partners like Inspired Testing, end users now have a completely frictionless digital experience when investing, and they have access to a qualified financial advisor at no cost to review the platform’s investment recommendations.”
