Building robust fintech apps with react
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
The fintech industry has seen an explosive growth over the last few years. The ways we manage finances, make transactions, and track spending have changed a lot, decreasing the value of traditional banks. McKinsey’s research suggests that over the next four years, revenues in the fintech industry are projected to increase at almost 3 times the rate of the traditional banking sector.
Following the advancements of the Fintech field, there is a growing demand for flexible, scalable, and user-friendly technology solutions that can guarantee the success of the financial app. Among a wide range of available technology stacks on the market, ReactJS stands out thanks to its flexibility and ease of use. That’s why finding the most experienced ReactJS development company becomes a quest due to the overcrowded IT market.
Advantages of React for fintech app development
ReactJS is often mistaken for a framework or a programming language, but it’s actually a third-party open-source library developed by Facebook employees and written in JavaScript. Its main advantages are:
- quick and easy integration with other JavaScript libraries;
- its developers’ community supports and contributes to the library’s development;
- its self-contained components can be easily changed and reused;
- easy to master for everyone who knows JavaScript;
- effortless maintenance of ReactJS apps due to the component nature and scalability;
- loads of useful developers tools;
- SEO-friendly thanks to the Virtual DOM feature allowing search engines index React websites effectively.
With all these features, it’s no wonder that ReactJS has remained the second most-used framework among developers worldwide for over a few years.
3 best practices for developing fintech apps with React
There are a few common practices to maintain when developing a fintech app on React.
1. State management
State management in ReactJS represents dynamic data storage that makes it possible to manage the components, keep track of ever-changing data, and trigger re-rendering after updates. React provides several tools for managing state, the most commonly used include MobX, Redux, or Context API:
- MobX is the most flexible solution suited for apps with real-time updates. It automatically tracks dependencies and re-renders components when the state changes.
- Redux is a centralized store for managing larger financial apps. It ensures that the state of the variables is consistent throughout the whole app.
- Context API is better suited for less complex apps and allows for easier state sharing.
2. Security measures
Apps dealing with such sensitive data, such as payment info, should be protected to the maximum level to ensure security and avoid data breaches. Security measures must include additional credentials and biometrics. Multifactor authentication (MFA) is a must and biometric data like facial, eye, or voice recognition should be added to the app as well. Role-based authorization should guarantee that users, for example, developers, can access only the allowed parts of the data without seeing and storing account information. The sensitive data should be encrypted and kept in a secure data storage. Protocols like HTTPS and TLS can ensure its safety and help avoid data and money theft.
3. Performance optimization
Performance is another key metric required from the Fintech app, and ReactJS can ensure high efficiency, fast loading, and responsiveness of the application. Features like code splitting can significantly improve performance by breaking down the application into smaller bundles or fetching them as needed. Lazy loading delays the loading of all components till they are requested by using tools like ‘React. lazy()’.
Memoization is another useful optimization technique. It caches the results of ‘heavy’ function calls and stores them, accessing these same results from the cache and providing them when after a similar request is added. React Hooks enhance performance by letting you ‘hook into’ React state and lifecycle features from function components. This way, they can prevent function recreations on every render.
Essential plugins and libraries for fintech development
ReactJS is known for its modularity and ease of integration with a variety of plugins and libraries, allowing it to address every concern and ensure additional functionality.
For form handling
Forms are essential to any Fintech app. They are used for user registration, account opening, transaction processing, and receiving assistance from the support team. Formik and React Hook Form libraries simplify form handling in React. Formik provides a range of custom components used to build forms and relays on React Context to connect them. React Hook Form provides a custom hook for efficiently handling forms. It is lightweight and also simplifies and speeds up the form validation process, which in turn makes the app more quick and efficient.
For state management
The state in React designates the data controlling the components’ behavior and rendering. State management ensures that the app is maintainable, predictable, and scalable. Depending on the size and needs of the specific app, developers can use different tools. Redux, for example, centralizes all the state of the app into a single store. It is a predictable and consistent tool, ideal for complex projects. MobX is a simpler and more concise solution, which is better suited for smaller applications requiring frequent and real-time updates.
For authentication and security
Apps, where financial data is at stake, require advanced security measures to ensure data safety. Auth0 and Firebase Authentication are examples of such solutions that can be easily integrated into React apps. Auth0 provides a secure and customizable authentication and authorization platform with a variety of authentication methods like single sign-on (SSO), multifactor authentication (MFA), and OAuth. Firebase Authentication is a part of Google Cloud, an online platform allowing to implement simple user authentication tools, for instance, emails, passwords, social logins, and phone numbers.
For real-time data handling
Real-time data handling ensures that the financial data is synchronized across all devices and is updated momentarily, which is especially important for transaction processing. Socket.IO is a widely used library that enables real-time communication between the client and the server. It’s suited for fintech apps that require instant updates, such as trading platforms or live financial dashboards. Firebase Firestore is a somewhat lightweight database service that helps to effectively scale and manage large data volumes, making it perfect for apps requiring instant updates and consistent data synchronization across users.
Wrapping up
In Fintech app development, choosing the right tools and framework is half of success. Financial operations come with their challenges, meaning an app should be user-friendly, flexible, scalable, and at the same time – efficient, maintainable, and secure. ReactJS is the perfect solution for such apps because it can be easily integrated and supplemented with various tools, plugins, and libraries addressing specific needs and challenges. It ensures advanced data protection protocols, like authentication and authorization, efficient state management and form handling, and real-time updates that are so important to Fintech apps. Using React, developers can add any needed features and functions that will contribute to the safety and high performance of the product.
