How Global Leaders Are Developing Financial Markets-Grade Software at Speed and Scale

Increased market volatility, rising client expectations, and rapid technological advancements mean that financial markets firms are facing immense pressure to constantly innovate and modernize their systems.  

To keep up with innovation pressures, financial institutions must build software that is high performance, secure and resilient, quickly. Combine this with shrinking IT budgets, increased competition for engineering talent, outdated technology systems, and stringent regulatory requirements, and it’s no surprise that innovating technology in financial services lags behind other industries.  

Financial institutions must seek new opportunities for ways to do more with less. 

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Approaches to Developing Financial Markets-Grade Software 

There is a gap between the demand for financial software development and the availability of skilled developers to meet it. Firms typically approach this through projects to improve developer productivity, outsourcing development and empowering generalist developers to do some of the building. 

Each of these approaches have their own pros and cons in terms of time to market, maintainability, and the total cost of ownership. Outsourcing development can be a quick and cost-effective option when there is a clear business need and lack of internal developer availability. Although when outsourcing, strong communication and quality control is critical for success. 

Meanwhile, others turn to traditional low code or no code platforms to accelerate development. However, these typically fall short as they are not high performance or real-time and often have limited customization. To avoid these complications, many firms resort to attempting to improve developer productivity. .

How to Measure Developer Productivity  

Developer productivity refers to how effectively developers can deliver projects. While there are engineering intelligence tools around designed to measure this, productivity will vary from firm to firm as there isn’t a standard measure. An important thing to note is productivity is more than just how many lines of code a developer can write in a given amount of time.  Firms can measure developer productivity by assessing other factors too including: 

• How effectively developers can deliver code that aligns with business goals. 

• Code quality, maintainability, and scalability. 

• Customer feedback, which reflects how effectively developers are addressing customer needs. 

• Developer satisfaction, which can reflect how engaged developers are with their work.  

For firms looking to improve developer productivity, leveraging application development platforms such as the Genesis Application Platform, along with AI-powered tools, and DevOps practices, are often the first port of call.  

Combining this with careful planning, training and continuous evaluation will help to promote developer adoption of these tools and ensure a more effective, productive and sustainable way of working. 

How to Improve Developer Productivity Using Financial Application Development Platforms 

Financial application development platforms can be an effective way for firms to boost developer productivity when developing financial markets software. The Genesis Application Platform is expertly designed to make full-stack development and deployment faster and more accessible. It provides developers with a high-performance foundation to build upon, which includes many pre-built modules, templates, and components.  

Many financial application development platforms offer integrated development environments (IDEs) which allow developers to write, debug and deploy code within a single interface, which reduces time wasted switching between tools. They can also reduce the likelihood of costly mistakes by automating repetitive tasks and offering built-in collaboration tools. 

Integrating a new platform is a big decision, and there are some key considerations that firms should keep in mind. Financial markets software has strict compliance requirements, which means it’s important to select a robust platform that includes access control and audit trails, and strict data security.  

Financial services software development platforms should also promote maintainability by ensuring that code can be easily updated and scaled when required. Ideally, it should allow easy migration and integration with other tools, in case the firm chooses to switch to another vendor in the future.  

As the demand for fast application development platforms rises, their role will continue to evolve. Low-code and no-code solutions are already making it easier for generalist developers to modify many applications, while development platforms are providing more resources that allow skilled developers to focus on complex tasks. This includes support for a wider range of languages and frameworks, better documentation, and more intuitive user interfaces. 

How AI is Changing Financial Software Development 

AI has been reshaping trading for decades. But in the past couple of years, this has accelerated significantly. Firms are increasingly using AI across the software development lifecycle to improve developer productivity. 

Some examples of how firms are currently using AI include: 

• Automating coding generation based on descriptions. 

• Reducing the likelihood of syntax errors by suggesting code as developers type. 

• Assisting in code reviews by analyzing code to detect potential bugs before it is deployed. 

• Making project management more efficient by estimating task completion times and predicting potential bottlenecks ahead of time. 

While AI offers many benefits, it can also go wrong. Given the wide-ranging capabilities of AI, it can feel tempting for developers to over-rely on it. This means they may end up deploying code without a clear understanding of how it works. Having too much faith in AI also means developers may fail to check the output properly.  

Security and compliance issues can also arise, given the complex requirements of financial markets software. AI-generated code may not be compliant with industry requirements, which can lead to costly breaches. Many developers may also feel nervous that AI will replace them completely, which can make them hesitant to use it and reduce productivity even further.  

To mitigate these issues, AI should only be used to augment software developers’ capabilities, rather than in an attempt to replace them completely. AI-generated code should always be reviewed by human experts, and firms should provide employees with regular training that outlines how to effectively use AI and emphasizes its limitations. 

Here at Genesis, our AI-powered tool, Genesis View, lets developers turn UX designs from screenshots or specialist design tools, into Genesis UI code and CSS. This helps firms to improve developer productivity and increase efficiency by providing a solid baseline for them to work with. This means firms can create innovative financial markets software more quickly, without compromising security or compliance.  

The evolving nature of AI means that it will become increasingly difficult to avoid in the years to come. In the next few years, we predict an increase in tools like this which act as collaborative partners designed to complement human developers. As firms integrate these tools into their software development processes, it’s essential to balance their potential for innovation with careful consideration of the ethical implications. 

To learn more on how your firm can develop compliant financial markets-grade software at speed and scale, sign up to our online exclusive event.