subject: Finfore - How Does A Financial Saas Go Mobile ( Iphone / Ipad / Android )? [print this page] Finfore Limited, a UK based financial Saas ( Software as a Service ), decided in 2010 that it's time for them to increase their market share by targeting mobile users as well.
The app focuses on providing real-time breaking news, that can be personalized to their user's career profile. It reduces the quantity of received information while increasing its quality in the same time.
Challenge
One of the unique parts of this ambitious project was the fact that the version they had was more of a desktop app than a SaaS, since it was written in Adobe Air.
As you might know, this has some major inconveniences:
Adobe Flash, on which Adobe Air is built upon is not supported on iPhones or iPads, and recently it was dropped on Android devices as well
you need to download it on every computer you want to access your account with
The other challenge we faced was related to the real-time news they work with. They take the information from many sources, like Twitter, Google Finances, RSS or LinkedIn, personalize it and push it to the user, which for mobile devices would be done over a 3G connection.
Results
Knowing the available resources on the targeted mobile device are smaller than those of desktop or laptop computers, and they lacked Flash support, we decided to go for building a truly SaaS version directly in HTML5, CSS3 and JQuery Mobile.
In the end, the application works directly from their website, without requiring any kind of installation. It adapts to the screen size of the users device, whether it is a desktop/laptop or an iPhone / iPad / Android one, AND it worksbeautifully with swipe gestures.
"Barandi Solutions provides professional and high quality services. Equally important, they are a pleasure to work with and we've worked with them on several projects over the last 2 years. Many thanks to the entire team, who we rate highly" - Shane Leonard, CFA, Managing Director, Finfore Limited.
About Finfore:
Finfore is a web-services business, delivering solutions to the finance professionals. Designed by finance professionals our core mission is to improve how finance professionals work. To often products are designed with a technology in mind rather than the actual needs of the end user. Financial professionals are users with unique constraints. Given we are led by a team of finance professionals we have a clear insight into the needs of our customers.
Reliable, secure, and easy to use products are at the core of our operations. Without these attributes, we do not think any new tool for the financial community will displace the existing practices, even if there is a significant cost saving. Helping our users gain a competitive edge is what counts, and they are willing to pay for it.
Finfore started operations in early 2010, with an office based in London. We partner with technology providers from a number of IT hubs, including: India; Ukraine; West Coast USA; and Romania. We have a philosophy of looking at the core user-experience of the specific functions in finance that we target, and consider what is the optimal structure, regardless of technology of historic business processes. We seek to eliminate laborious tasks for junior team members, increase the access to high quality real-time data to all participants. All of which drive our goal in increasing transparency and efficiency in finance.
But like our customers, Finfore is not all about dollar and cents. Giving back to the community on a significant scale is one of our core missions. This isn't just about operating and building tools for charities and not-for-profit organisations. This is about using our knowledge and time to help raise awareness for good-causes. Other companies may encourage their employees to spend 10% of their time in the "sand-box" dreaming up new products. We ask our employees and partners to spend that "sand-box" time thinking of new ways our expertise can help do good.
