CASHLET: building a financial Android app for investing and managing savings for an African market

Process:

Since all initial designs were delivered by the client, we were able to perform a fast team onboarding (it took just a week!) and started the development immediately.

The first main task was re-writing the existing backend. For the framework side, we have chosen React Native. We focused on getting the Android version ready first, since it’s dominant in the African market. Thanks to choosing this framework, it will be easy to develop the iOS version as well.

We have also used Java - it was the initial language of the backend and we could use some of the good-quality code.

Over the course of the work, we decided that some of the designs needed improvements as well. We brought in external designers to the issues to make the user experience more pleasant and the whole app more appealing for the users.

Quite challenging was working with mPesa, a payment provider from Kenya. In order to confirm every transaction within the app, you need to get SMS on Kenyan numbers. We used Teamviewer to get remote access to the phone with a Kenyan SIM card.

As for the workflow, we used the Agile approach. The client was as engaged in the process as possible, constantly providing feedback on our deliverables which significantly speeded up the development process.