Why Would You Use React Native For Banking App Development?

Banking apps were born to make financial activities more accessible, and they are now among the fastest-growing app segments. 

The characteristics of a banking app revolve significantly around real-time processing, velocity, security, and user-friendliness. Banking app development can be very complicated and time-consuming, for it has to meet all these requirements to win customers’ hearts. 

There are several popular programming languages that developers use to improve their work quality and reduce the time it takes to create a banking app, one of which is React Native for the app frontend. However, before you decide to go all-in with React Native, you should first grasp how it works and determine whether it is the best fit for your project.

In this article, we will explain this framework so you can make an informed decision about whether React Native is right for your company.

1. What Is React Native?

React Native (or RN) is a popular JavaScript-based mobile app framework that allows you to develop natively rendered iOS and Android mobile apps.

To be more specific, it means you may make use of the major advantages of React.js app development, such as faster time to market, simplicity of use, rapid work, efficient developer tools, and so on. The framework enables you to design applications for several platforms using a single codebase.

React Native aims at providing a fantastic mobile user experience, making it a good choice for apps that demand high responsiveness and straightforward use, like banking apps.

Facebook released React Native as an open-source project in 2015. Some of the world’s most popular mobile apps, such as Instagram, Facebook, and Skype, are built with React Native.

Next, you will learn about React Native’s features to understand why it is among the leading frameworks for banking apps.

2. Successful React Native App Examples

Facebook

Facebook is no doubt the most famous React Native app, as the company is the one that gave birth to this programming language. By leveraging React Native, Facebook was able to integrate all web development benefits to mobile with the Ads Manager app in iOS and Android with only one development team. 

Skype

Skype built a brand new app with React Native. The new app was completely redesigned with new icons and features for an enhanced user experience. 

Instagram

Instagram opted to integrate React Native into its current native app, beginning with the Push notification view, which began as a WebView. React Native enabled product teams to increase developer velocity by 85-99%.

Pinterest

Pinterest showed interest in React Native for a long time before deciding to test it out and develop a prototype of a critical onboarding feature – the Topic Picker. As a result, they managed to save significant implementation time, and the performance was good on both iOS and Android. Pinterest has officially included React Native as an extra mobile development framework in their tech stack.

3. React Native Features

React Native has several notable features that have propelled it to the top of the list of developers’ preferred programming languages.

Cross-platform development

React Native supports cross-platform development, meaning that once the right code is written, the majority of it can be shared between the iOS and Android platforms. It provides ready-made code components and eliminates the necessity of developing everything from scratch. Hence, this single feature accelerates the entire development process.

For cases where there are operational and design differences between the iOS and Android platforms, they will be dealt with automatically in cross-platform development thanks to the shared codebase.

This will result in a consistent app identity on both platforms with far less work than if it were created natively for iOS and Android.

One codebase

Individual and consistent code authoring is required for native app development. Furthermore, two separate software developers will be needed, one for iOS and the other for Android.

However, in the case of React Native, you will only need one codebase to handle the two platforms, so everything will be in one place.

Faster and cheaper development 

Because it takes fewer resources to write code, React Native offers quicker and more cost-effective product development. Another advantage of adopting React Native is the popularity of Javascript as a coding language for application development.

Moreover, React Native is a fairly basic programming language with a short learning curve when compared to other frameworks.

So, React Native allows you to save both time and money on your app development. 

High credibility 

React Native is a popular app development framework, provided by Facebook, so it has been used and tested by many developers. Microsoft and Google, two of the world’s largest technology companies, have also chosen React Native to build their apps. That’s why you can be confident in the benefits that React Native offers. 

4. Pros & Cons of Developing A Banking App with React Native

So you have learned about React Native’s features and seen the reasons it is so popular among developers. But that is not yet enough to help you make an educated decision about whether it is a good option for your banking app. To be able to do so, one must know the pros and cons related to using React Native in mobile app development. 

Pros

Developing your banking app with React Native will offer the following benefits:

• One Code For Both iOS and Android

Because React Native employs a single codebase for both the iOS and Android platforms, mobile application development using React Native has the ability to reach a wide range of target audiences.

• Ready-to-use Components

Rather than starting from scratch, speed up your development process by utilizing the ready-to-use components provided by React Native in your banking app development.

• One Team – Two Platforms

Native apps demand two independent development teams, for Android and iOS. As a result, there is a risk that the project may become inconsistent.

That is no longer a problem with React Native. The framework makes things feasible and only needs a single team to design an app for both platforms.

• Large developer community

React Native is an open-source JavaScript platform that permits developers to contribute their expertise to the framework’s development, which is accessible to everybody.

If a developer encounters an issue while building an app, they can seek support from the community (as of mid-2020, there are nearly 50,000 active contributors to the React Native tag in Stack Overflow).

There will always be someone who can assist them in resolving their problems; this has a positive effect on enhancing their coding skills.

• Fast refresh

Developers may use hot reloading to run the program while upgrading it to new versions and changing the UI. Updates are instantly visible, and the developer is saved from rebuilding the entire software.

• Simple UI, optimal UX

React Native development uses React JavaScript to create the app’s UI, making it more responsive and faster with less load time, resulting in a better user experience. The framework’s reactive UI and component-based approach make it perfect for making apps with both simple and complex designs.

• Fast applications

Some argue that React Native code might have a negative impact on app performance. Even though JavaScript is slower than native code, the difference is invisible to the human eye. A test comparing two versions of a basic application developed in React Native and Swift showed that both obtained comparable performance results.

• Future proof

Given the rapid adoption of the framework and its straightforward approach to resolving development issues, the future of React Native for cross-platform apps is promising.

Cons

React native sounds very ideal for banking app development. Nevertheless, it also has some weaknesses that may affect your project.

• Lack of some custom modules

While React Native has been around for a while, several custom modules either need to be improved or are completely absent. This indicates that instead of just one codebase, you may need to run three (for React Native, iOS, and Android). However, this is not a common case. Only those who wish to build their app from scratch may run into such an issue.

• Compatibility & debugging issues

The implementation of React Native in banking apps has only taken place in recent years. Thus, your developers may run into problems with package compatibility or debugging tools. If your developers are inexperienced with React Native, this may have a negative impact on your development as they spend time troubleshooting.

• Need of native developer’s help 

React Native is a platform that links JavaScript with native mobile programming. This implies that if a developer in charge is unfamiliar with native mobile development, they will struggle to incorporate native code into the React native codebase. As a result, you’ll need the help of Android or iOS developers to lead them through the procedure. However, this might be impossible for a small business since it will incur additional costs.

One solution is to hire a software development company to assist you with the native iOS and Android aspects.

5. Takeaway 

React Native is an excellent solution for developing apps that operate seamlessly on any platform or system. It’s a popular framework among both corporations and developers. It helps you to save a significant number of labor hours, resulting in a speedier development process that is also cost-effective.

To decide if you prefer using React native for your banking app, you will need advice from experienced developers. They are the ones who work with this framework so they are aware that it would be suitable for your app based on the requirements. If you have an idea for your banking app and need consultation, don’t hesitate to contact us!