Fintech has transmuted banking and financial operations worldwide. It has radically simplified financial services and processes with the help of banking applications. Back in the day fintech applications were confined only to tech-savvy users, but today, it has become an integral part of life for all generations. The appetite for mobile-first, customized financial applications is driving fintech companies to innovate and consistently deliver advanced products and services.
Banking applications are traditionally built for specific operating systems and APIs using the respective native programming languages/technologies. But these practices resulted in higher cost implications and prolonged time to market. To overcome such limitations, fintechs adopted the latest digital innovations to power personalization, user engagement, and security.
The launch of Flutter in 2017 changed the dynamics of application development as it provided a great user experience tailored for specific operating systems. This unique feature made Flutter the holy grail of fintech app development. Over the last few years, several companies have successfully launched their applications using the Flutter framework.
Curious to know how to add a flutter module to an existing android and iOS application?
You’re in luck. We have our domain expert and Senior Software Engineer, Chinnadurai Viswanathan share the nitty-gritty of how Flutter can be used in fintech applications.
Here are the topics he sheds light upon.
Why Flutter is critical to Fintech?
How to Generate a Flutter Module?
Here you go!
What is Flutter?
Flutter is an open-source software development kit from Google. It is used to build cross-platform applications, including mobile, web, and embedded products & services. Programmers employing Flutter write a single codebase to create applications that run across various platforms such as android, iOS, Windows, and Linux. Developers build a Flutter app once and cross-compile them for multiple platforms with Flutter instead of creating an individual application for each platform.
Let us be clear here that Flutter is not a programming language. It is a User Interface (UI) framework that works on the Dart programming language. It uses native UI elements which can be personalized during development. Some of the most used Flutter applications are Google Pay, Xianyu by Alibaba, and the KenKen puzzle app.
Why is Flutter critical to Fintech?
Flutter combines the best features from native and hybrid application development approaches. Therefore, it is considered an optimal solution for neo banks and fintech companies. The Flutter framework offers manifold benefits to the user. But in this article, we emphasize the ones that are most essential for developing a fintech or mobile banking solution.
Application and Data Security
Flutter is powered by Dart and compiled into a native, computer-executable code. There are no intermediary apps required. This makes Flutter-based banking apps more secure than native solutions. Moreover, it also involves a comprehensive native library and changes data formats during compilation. So, the reverse engineering process is multifaceted, making it almost impossible for hackers to comprehend the software functionality to reproduce.
Information security and compliance with regulations like PCI DSS and GDPR are imperative for a banking application. The framework allows biometric authentication via Face ID or Touch ID, and enables Dart developers to leverage the recently released library implementations of all popular data encryption algorithms. This boosts the security of the customers’ personal and financial data as well as transaction details.
Reliable Performance
An application’s performance is directly proportional to customer engagement and retention rate. Delays in loading time significantly impact the product’s performance, which can make the customers stop using the application again.
Flutter can offer up to 120 frames per second (FPS) performance, making it a top choice for banking apps that serve a colossal userbase with rapid response time.
Use of Declarative API
Flutter harnesses reactive declarative UI APIs. This means Flutter’s user interface reflects the current state of the application. For example, if a user flips a switch in the settings screen, it triggers a redraw of the current state, and the UI rebuilds from scratch. This is the key advantage of Flutter.
There is only one code path for any state of the user interface. The developer describes what the UI should be like, for any given state once, and that is it. The framework handles the arduous, error-prone task of optimizing the UI.
Saves Time, Cost, and Effort
Unlike native technologies, the Flutter framework presents a unique feature called the Hot Reload. It allows the developers to see the front-end and back-end changes in real-time. This enhances the product delivery speed as it saves a lot of time involved in developing and compiling a banking app. Additionally, Flutter offers a lot of widgets that help in simulating the behavior of various design languages, thus enabling the developers to jump some of the tedious steps in the application development.
Furthermore, by using Flutter, developers write only one codebase for different operating systems. Thus multiple teams for each operating system is not required. This reduces the time and effort involved in testing bugs and potential issues. Furthermore, the use of a single codebase for different platforms drastically alleviates the maintenance process and, in turn, minimizes operational costs.
Delivers Seamless User Experience and Performance
Releasing new features and updates according to end-user feedback is the key to boosting customer engagement and retention. Flutter is flexible and has an in-built application builder. The developers can take advantage of a wide range of pre-developed, reusable UI elements to customize and fit customer needs and specifications. The apps built using this framework facilitate seamless user experience and superior performance.
How to Generate a Flutter Module?
To create a flutter project, you require one of the following channels: beta, dev, or master. In case you are using the stable channel, change/ upgrade your channel before moving to the next step. Now, create a flutter module as shown in the below image.
Upon clicking the finish button, a flutter module will be generated in the chosen folder.
Now, using flutter design, you can make any design to meet your business requirements.
Let us take the below design as an example
How to add Flutter to Android?
We will first create a new Android Studio project.
Step 1: Start Android Studio on your system.
Step 2: Click on Start a new Android Studio project
Step 3: Choose Empty Activity/Whatever you need (Based on your business logic) and click Next.
Step 4: Now enter the details for your native android project
Step 5: Click on the Finish button
There are two ways to implement the Flutter Module:
(1) Using Android Archive (ARR)
(2) Using Module’s source code
Here, we are using the Module’s source code as it facilitates a one-step build for the Android and Flutter projects. It is also convenient to work simultaneously on both parts; however, remember to install the Flutter SDK to build the host app.
As the next step, add the Flutter module as a sub-project to the host app’s settings. Gradle file by adding the following commands:
Now, sync the Gradle by clicking on Sync Now button. Next, add more code and files to the host app to make it Flutter dependent.
Add a dependency to the app-level build. Gradle in your host app
Finally, the Flutter Module is successfully added to the native Android Application.
Integrating Flutter Module with the Android app
Follow the below steps to build the FlutterActivity class to display the Flutter screen within the host app.
- Use the withNewEngine() factory method to configure a FlutterActivity that internally creates its own FlutterEngine instance.
- Followed by the initialRoute() factory method to define a custom route to display the Flutter UI, defined in the Flutter app code.
- Finally, employ the build() method to build the FlutterActivity within the host app. It takes the current Activity as an argument.
or
Add the following inside the AndroidManifest.xml file of the host app to load up the Flutter UI.
Finally, the Flutter module is integrated with the native Android application.
How to add Flutter to iOS?
As the first step, create an empty iOS project with all the required files. Here, we are creating a new Xcode project.
To create an empty iOS project, enter the Product Name, select Team, and fill in the other details. Then click Next.
We can implement the Flutter Module in two ways:
(1) by embedding frameworks in Xcode
(2) by embedding with CocoaPods and the Flutter SDK
Here, we will embed with CocoaPods to add Flutter to a native iOS app.
Integrating Flutter Module with the iOS application
We have used FlutterViewController to build FlutterActivity to display the Flutter screen within the host, a native iOS application. However, to use this, we will also need to create a FlutterEngine class. The proper place to build a FlutterEngine is inside the AppDelegate.swift file. Now, replace the whole content of this file with the following code
Now, add the following lines to the ViewController.swift file in order to display the flutter screen.
Finally, the Flutter module is integrated with the native iOS application.
Flutter is a feature-rich Software Development Kit with an enormous potential to build a banking app while achieving performance and fault tolerance. With Flutter, the app UI and logic doesn’t change depending on the platform. There is no reliance on platform-specific UI components, and it is suitable for any target platform. Using Flutter, developers can impose the critical facet of the financial industry, such as security of sensitive data and defense from reverse engineering.
Looking for assistance in using Flutter to build your banking app, write to us at business@m2pfintech.com. We’ll be glad to help.
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