Step-by-Step Guide to Setting Up a QA Team in a FinTech Company
In the FinTech world, where financial systems are complex and regulations are strict, software quality can’t be an afterthought. A reliable QA team helps keep applications stable, secure, and compliant. This guide outlines how to build a strong QA setup for a FinTech company — from defining team roles to setting up continuous testing workflows.
Why QA Is Crucial in FinTech
FinTech apps handle sensitive data and real-time transactions. Even small bugs or slowdowns can cause real damage. That’s why QA in this space goes beyond checking functionality — it’s about preventing security issues, improving usability, and meeting regulatory demands.
Catching Risks Early
A good QA team helps identify technical and security issues before they become real problems. In FinTech, this means catching logic errors in transaction flows, ensuring proper data encryption, or spotting performance bottlenecks before launch.
Improving the Customer Experience
Speed, clarity, and trust are key in financial apps. QA helps ensure your app is responsive, user-friendly, and error-free. This means fewer support tickets, higher retention, and stronger user trust.
Staying Compliant
FinTech teams often work under strict rules — from GDPR to PCI-DSS. QA teams help ensure your app meets those standards through regular audits, documentation, and compliance testing.
Step 1: Define Your QA Team Structure
Start by deciding who you need on the team. In most FinTech setups, this includes:
- QA Manager – Leads the team, tracks progress, and coordinates with stakeholders.
- Manual QA Engineers – Write and execute test cases for new features and edge cases.
- Automation Engineers – Build and maintain scripts for repetitive and regression testing.
- Performance Testers – Handle load testing to make sure your app performs under pressure.
You can also bring in security testers or compliance-focused QA specialists when needed.
Keep the Team Flexible
Your QA needs will change as your product evolves. Some sprints may require just 2–3 testers, others may need a full squad. For example, during high-growth periods or major product launches, companies like Tipalti worked with up to 20 QA engineers. Keep that flexibility in mind when building the team.
Step 2: Build a FinTech-Ready Testing Strategy
Once your team is in place, you need a testing plan that fits your app and release schedule.
Choose the Right Testing Mix
Most FinTech teams use a mix of:
- Manual testing – Great for early-stage feature validation, usability testing, and exploratory testing.
- Automated testing – Speeds up regression testing and shortens release cycles.
- Performance testing – Makes sure your app can handle spikes in traffic or heavy data processing.
Tipalti, for example, runs automated tests to support 25+ product releases per year — something that would be impossible without automation in place.
Write a Clear Test Plan
Create documentation that outlines test cases, priorities, tools, and acceptance criteria. Good test coverage means fewer surprises in production. Keep the plan flexible enough to adapt as the product changes.
Step 3: Set Up a Consistent QA Process
Having a team and a strategy is one thing. You also need a working system that keeps everyone aligned and testing regularly.
Standardize Your Workflows
Define how QA fits into your development pipeline. Are you testing in sprints? Are tests run before every deployment? What’s the process for reporting bugs?
Document this and make sure the dev and QA teams are aligned.
Use the Right Tools
QA tools should match your stack and scale with your team. Common tools include:
- Test automation frameworks (e.g. Cypress, Playwright)
- Performance/load testing tools
- Bug tracking systems like Jira
- CI tools like Jenkins, GitHub Actions, or GitLab CI
Connect QA tools directly into your development workflows to catch problems early.
Keep Communication Flowing
Use Slack, Notion, or any other internal tool to share updates, report bugs, and plan testing cycles. Schedule regular standups or syncs between QA and dev teams to surface blockers early.
Step 4: Adopt CI and Continuous Testing
In FinTech, the speed of change is high. To keep up, testing needs to be continuous — not just before releases.
Use CI/CD Pipelines
Run your tests automatically with each code commit. This helps spot bugs early and gives instant feedback to developers. It also prevents delays by catching regressions long before staging or production.
Automate Regression Testing
Automated regression tests ensure that each update doesn’t break something that was already working. This is critical when your app deals with real money or live user data.
Step 5: Encourage Collaboration Across Teams
Testing works best when it’s part of the larger product culture — not something tacked on at the end.
Align QA with Developers and Product Teams
QA should be involved from day one of feature planning. Ask testers to review feature specs and user flows early so they can prepare tests ahead of time.
Build Feedback Loops
Encourage regular feedback between devs, testers, product managers, and even support staff. This helps QA teams catch issues that impact real users — not just what shows up in a bug tracker.
Step 6: Track QA Performance and Improve It
QA isn’t a one-time setup. It should evolve as your product and business grow.
Use Simple Metrics
Track a few core metrics like:
- Bugs found pre-release vs post-release
- Test coverage %
- Average time to resolve issues
- Release stability
Use those numbers to improve your QA process, not to micromanage testers.
Review What’s Working (and What’s Not)
Set up retrospectives or periodic reviews to discuss what can be improved. Involve everyone — from QA engineers to product managers — to make the process more effective.
Final Thoughts
Setting up a QA team for a FinTech product isn’t just about hiring testers. It’s about creating a system that helps your team ship secure, compliant, and reliable software — even under pressure.
DeviQA’s long-term collaboration with Tipalti shows how a well-structured QA setup can support aggressive release cycles without sacrificing quality or compliance.
Partner With DeviQA
If you're building or scaling a FinTech product and need a QA partner that understands the challenges, DeviQA is here to help. Whether you need full-cycle QA support or help expanding your current team, we offer flexible testing solutions tailored for financial software.