In global banking, the conversation around software testing has changed dramatically. What was once a procedural checkpoint at the end of a release cycle has become a strategic function shaping resilience, regulatory assurance, and customer experience.
For leading financial institutions, the quality of code now sits on the same agenda as the quality of capital.
At British multinational bank Barclays, that transformation is already under way. Over the past year, the UK-based lender has re-engineered how it delivers and assures software, embedding testing earlier in development and aligning quality metrics with risk and compliance.
The bank has built testing directly into its DevOps pipelines and expanded observability across its performance-engineering framework, an approach that blends automation, monitoring, and governance across every layer of its digital infrastructure.
“The ‘shift-left’ approach, emphasising early testing and analysis, has become crucial for catching issues before they affect go-live phases,” explained Manik Sikka, Global Lead for Performance Engineering at Barclays.
“We’ve also increasingly automated performance testing and incorporated observability into our engineering practices,” he added.
That mindset reflects a wider industry shift. From London to Singapore, banks are reinventing Quality Engineering as a board-level discipline.
The recently published World Quality Report 2024-25, produced by Capgemini, Sogeti and OpenText, described this as a “decisive new phase” in how financial institutions approach software testing.
The report, which was shared with QA Financial, found that “the strategic importance of robust Quality Engineering practices has gained even greater recognition,” with 40 per cent of organisations embedding quality engineers directly into Agile teams.
Yet 56 per cent of respondents still say QA is not viewed as a strategic activity. The authors call for banks to measure QA by its business outcomes, customer satisfaction, revenue impact, operational resilience, rather than by test coverage alone.
Seventy-one per cent of surveyed firms have already integrated AI or GenAI into their testing operations, while another third are developing roadmaps. Capgemini described GenAI as “not just a tool but a partner in the testing process,” warning that “it is almost a necessity to build a robust quality ecosystem or run the risk of being left behind.”
Legacy barriers
Legacy architecture remains the biggest barrier to automation, cited by 64 per cent of respondents, followed by complex tooling and a lack of enterprise-wide strategy.
Talent scarcity adds to the strain: 31 per cent of firms need full-stack quality engineers versed in cloud, performance, and security, while 27 per cent seek Software Development Engineers in Test who combine coding and QA expertise. Although 82 per cent of organisations now offer structured learning pathways, only half track how effectively they’re used.
As testing becomes central to governance, data integrity and auditability are now regulatory priorities. The report noted that “the quality of data is increasingly becoming a critical focus area,” yet many institutions remain at the early stages of defining ownership frameworks.
“We’ve increasingly automated performance testing and incorporated observability into our engineering practices.”
– Manik Sikka of Barclays
Sikka said security concerns “loom large, particularly for industries like banking and insurance, necessitating careful consideration of whether to use external AI solutions or develop in-house systems.”
More than half of the organisations surveyed said intelligent or connected products, such as mobile banking apps and fraud detection models, are ‘very important’, with 21 per cent of QA budgets devoted to their validation.
Top testing priorities include functional correctness, security, and data quality. On sustainability, 98 per cent of firms acknowledge its importance, but only a quarter measure the environmental impact of their IT development.
“The field of Quality Engineering and Testing is maturing rapidly, with AI technologies offering exciting new opportunities,” stressed Jeff Spevacek, head of quality engineering and testing for financial services at Capgemini Americas.
“However, the expertise and proactive involvement of quality engineers remain critical to achieving success,” he added.
For banks like Barclays, this balance between automation and human oversight defines the next frontier of software assurance. The report concluded that “testing is no longer about the present, it is about preparing for the new futures in focus.”
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REGULATION & COMPLIANCE
Looking for more news on regulations and compliance requirements driving developments in software quality engineering at financial firms? Visit our dedicated Regulation & Compliance page here.
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