How to Create a Money Lending Mobile App

Are you wondering how to create a money lending mobile app?

We have got you covered. In this article, we are going to discuss all the details regarding the development of market-competitive money lending mobile apps.

According to a Statista research report, the global market for peer-to-peer money lending will reach a value of almost 1 trillion USD by 2025. The number of people in the US using peer-to-peer payments has been continuously increasing over the years.

So, the question of how to create a money lending mobile app is a valid one for startup owners and investors. Let’s dive into the details of creating a mobile application for such a lucrative market.

Why Create a Money Lending Mobile App?

Like a lot of other fintech services, the money lending process has also been digitized via mobile apps, etc. The advancement in technologies like Artificial Intelligence, IoT, and blockchain have also made the process of giving and receiving loans very straightforward.

Now, individuals can apply for a loan or borrow money through P2P online loan lending apps without the need of any financial institution acting as an intermediary. 

The hassle of going to banks, filling out forms, and signing various legal documents while applying for a bank loan can now be replaced by a convenient mobile application.

The peer-to-peer money lending apps allow both lenders and borrowers to set their conditions to facilitate a mutually beneficial loan agreement.  

Lenders can either set an interest rate on the amount they lend to the borrower or use an auction option where lenders bid on the interest amount for borrowers. The one with the lowest interest rate is selected by the borrower.

Individuals and enterprises are already using P2P applications for loans. The main benefits for the lenders include:

• Efficient KYC procedures;
• Improved lending features due to the latest technologies;
• Easy reach to remote user market;
• Serve multiple customers at the same time while saving operating costs.

The borrowers avail the following benefits from a loan application:

• Apply for a loan from anywhere without visiting banks and offices;
• Different types of loan options are available on one platform like personal loans, medical loans, business loans, etc.;
• Instant funding through partner bank branches;
• Multiple lenders to choose from.

Next, we will discuss some of the main features that will help your p2p lending app to prosper in the user market.

Key Features of a Money Lending App

A market-competitive loan lending mobile app will include:

• A Quick Registration Feature: A quick process enabling users to register through their phone numbers and social media accounts.
• User Profile: It contains all the user’s personal and required financial information like connected payment cards, etc.
• Request Loan Feature: A smooth step-by-step process of applying for a loan through a form, showing eligibility conditions, and featuring a loan calculator.
• Payment Log: To show the pending and completed repayments, credit score, etc.
• Notifications: To send personalized promotion offers, track repayments, alert for next due installments, etc.
• Payment Options: Showing different integrated bank accounts, debit/credit card options, cryptocurrency like bitcoin, etc.
• Customer Support: A 24/7 availability of customer support feature to answer users’ queries instantly.
• Geolocation: To detect user location and offer services like the nearest available ATMs or bank branches.

Now, let’s discuss how to create a mobile lending app with all the above-mentioned features and more.

Create a Money Lending Mobile App

You will follow the following steps to create a money lending mobile app successfully.

Plan and Gather Mobile App Feature Requirements

Decide what features you want to build into your money lending app. You can research your user market for loan apps for this purpose.

Analyze what your competitors are providing and how the target audience is responding to it. Also, decide what kind of resources you will need to implement your app requirements, including finance experts, etc.

Build a Mobile App Development Team

You will require an expert software development team for this project. Your team must include:

• A business analyst;
• A UX/UI designer;
• 1-2 mobile app developers;
• An application tester;
• A project manager.

Implement Mobile App Development Infrastructure

Next, decide what development infrastructure and tech stack you will use for your mobile lending platform. Being a fintech product, your project is a complex one. 

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You will not want to further complicate things for your development team.

For this reason, invest in a cloud computing infrastructure. This is a growing trend among all – from small businesses to medium-sized companies. 

According to PR Newswire research, By 2028, the global market size of cloud computing is expected to reach 1,251.09 billion US dollars. 

The cloud service provider will host and manage all the infrastructure requirements for your money payment application including, an application server, database management system, and even application development IDEs. 

Moreover, the cloud infrastructure platforms provide easy API integrations to several features.

This makes the work of your mobile app developers a lot easier. They do not have to manage any hardware or software requirements and can completely focus on application coding and debugging.

Some prominent cloud service providers for mobile application infrastructure include Amazon Amplify, Azure Mobile Apps, etc.

These cloud service providers will help your software developers build scalable and secure mobile apps in less time.

Select a Mobile App Development Methodology

Decide which mobile app development methodology your app developers will follow. Agile methodology is usually used for mobile app development projects. 

Agile frameworks help project managers to reduce estimation and development errors as this methodology supports primitive quality testing of mobile apps at each development stage.

Agile development is an iterative process where the whole development process is broken down into multiple short iterations. 

After each iteration, the product is delivered to the customers. Customers’ feedback from the beginning of the project minimizes the risks of a product’s market failure.

Your money payment mobile app development team can use agile frameworks like Scrum, Kanban, XP, etc.

Read more about agile development tools in our blog here.

 Design a User-friendly App Interface and Front-end Layout

An interactive mobile interface is an important component of software applications that is essential to keep users engaged. Interactive yet simple navigation builds your brand’s identity and encourages customer retention.

According to Forrester’s research study, a good user interface can increase sales conversion rate by 200%, and a better user experience can increase it by up to 400%.

A good UI/UX design is not only about aesthetics but also increased accessibility, responsiveness, and user satisfaction. 

Engage creative UX/UI designers to design the app layout including typography, theme, elements’ placements, etc.

Your designers can use tools like Sketch, InVision Studio, and Axure to create functional prototypes with dynamic elements. 

These software tools provide an extensive library of text styles, component styles, etc., with features like alignment and resizing.

Develop a Minimum Viable Product for your Money Lending App

Start your development process by building the core features of your money lending app first. This will be your minimum viable product. 

You will release this MVP with essential features for users’ use. The app users’ response to your MVP will help you analyze if your business strategy and product development specifications are in alignment with the user market. 

Research studies suggest that 64% of software features are rarely or never used by software users. 

You want to avoid this waste of resources in terms of time, cost, and effort. An MVP helps by indicating early on in the development process the features liked and disliked by your target customers.

You will need a competent and skilled team of mobile app developers with expertise in a broad range of technologies to complete your MVP. These skills are necessary to build a robust and secure money lending app, particularly due to the financial regulations it must adhere to. 

We will now discuss some of these required technical skills and knowledge domains.

Legal Compliance Standards:

Different regions like Australia, Eastern Europe, and Western Europe have different laws and regulations for software applications to ensure user data protection. 

Software business owners and developers must comply with these to avoid penalties and misuse of software products.

For example, for the European Union software market, there is a GDPR compliance standard. General Data Protection Regulations are a must to follow to build software that uses and protects customers’ personal data.

California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) is a standard for software products built for California residents. The CCPA compliance gives users more control over their personal data. 

Look for compliance standards for the region you want to market your money lending app in to avoid fines and other penalties.

Native Mobile App Development:

You have two options to create loan lending mobile apps. The first is a native app.

Native mobile apps are built for a particular platform. They make use of the software and hardware features including, GPS, camera, etc., and deliver a seamless experience on a mobile device.

Native apps are efficient in execution since the native app code is optimized for specific OS and so best utilizes processors and memory, etc.

If you plan to build an OS-specific application, you will need to choose the mobile OS you want to target. Mainly, it will depend on the user market you are targeting. 

The two popular mobile platforms among mobile users are Android and Apple.

Android Application Development:

There are 3.48 million Android apps available on the Play store. Your development team will have to put in their best efforts to develop a money loan application that stands out in a huge market. This is why you need them to be the best. 

Your Android developers can use Java, Kotlin, or both of these programming languages to build Android apps. 

They should be familiar with the syntax, and other concepts of programming like concurrency, multithreading, functional programming, etc.

They should also know markup language like XML (eXtensible Markup Language) to design front-end layouts which are then linked to the Kotlin or Java files.

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To develop and debug Android apps efficiently, your app developers can use IDE like Android Studio and Eclipse. 

Android Studio is very commonly used due to development features like Gradle that improve the app development process by integrating and managing external dependencies.

Your Android developers should also know about Android interactivity components like gestures, activity, etc., to build a stable user interaction process.

Your app development team can follow Material Design Guidelines to build a UI that conforms to the Android UI/UX standards. These guidelines will help you in customizing views, menus, animations, etc., for your loan application.

iOS Application Development:

To build a money lending app that works on Apple products like iPhone, iPad, etc., your developers will use a different set of technologies.

First, they should have expertise in the Swift programming language. They should know Swift syntax along with programming concepts like optionals, control flow, error handling, etc., for Swift language.

Your app developers should be familiar with design patterns like model-view-controller (MVC), delegate pattern, key-value observing, etc., including, the ups and downsides of each for iOS app development.

Your app development team can also use several tools to build high-performance apps efficiently. 

For example, XCode is the go-to IDE for iOS app developers. This IDE by Apple provides features like source editor, version editor, build system, simulator, etc., that assist developers in building and debugging apps efficiently.

AppCode by JetBrains is another popular tool to build iOS apps that supports multiple programming languages including, Objective C and JavaScript.

Your iOS app development team can use Human Design Guidelines as a reference to build interactive navigation and other frontend layouts aligned with Apple products.

You can convert one native app into another too. Read more on converting an iOS app to an Android app on our blog here.

Hybrid App Development:

If you are not willing to target a specific mobile OS, you can take another approach of developing hybrid apps or cross-platform apps.

Hybrid apps contain elements of both native apps and web applications. They are developed using common web development technologies such as CSS, Html, and JavaScript. They are then wrapped into native containers to run on different mobile platforms.

Since app developers have to code a single code base that runs on different mobile devices, the hybrid app development time is much less than building a native app. 

Also, web development technologies are simpler than those used for native app development.

Two approaches for cross-platform app development include WebView and compiled hybrid apps. With WebView apps, the code runs in an embedded browser. For compiled hybrid apps, app code is compiled for each platform.

Your mobile app developers can use cross-platform app development frameworks like Ionic, Xamarin, etc., to code efficiently.

Ionic is an open-source platform that enables developers to build progressive apps for every App store. It offers an extensive library for JS and CSS components. 

It also comes with native SDKs to build robust mobile apps efficiently.

Xamarin also offers a range of features to speed up the app development process. It provides an emulator manager, SDK manager, diagnostic tools, application loader, and integrations to native platforms including, iOS and Android.

Data Processing and Management:

Handling app data at the back end is an important task for mobile app developers. They need to ensure data processing is space and time-efficient. 

For Android apps, your app developers should be familiar with the Room database, a local database, and a component of Android Jetpack. 

Your developers can use ContentProvider to send data securely outside of the app.

Jetpack’s Datastore, a data layer library, can be used to store and manipulate small data blocks. 

For iOS apps, your developers should be familiar with the Core Data framework. It helps to track, save, and modify data on iOS apps. It is not a database itself but uses SQLite as a persistent database to help with local DB operations.

For secure data storage and hassle-free updates, mobile app developers use database management systems for mobile apps. 

Your developers should have experience in any of the databases from MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, etc. These database technologies will allow your app developers to easily modify, control, and organize data using data manipulation languages such as SQL, etc. 

API Development and Third-party API Integration:

APIs are necessary to enhance the functionality of your mobile app through third-party services. The use of APIs shortens the development time by supporting the reusability of software services. 

Your app developers can use APIs to add multiple features to your mobile app, such as notifications, file system management, secure payment channels, etc.

To integrate these APIs efficiently, your app developers should have expertise in REST architecture. It is a popular standard framework for designing and developing APIs.

Popular APIs for the Android platform include Cloud Storage API for managing data files on the cloud, Retrofit API to interface with external API data, GSON API for handling java objects, Google Pay for implementing payment infrastructure, etc.

iOS developers can use ObjectMapper API to communicate with online APIs, CloudRail API to manage cloud data, Apple Pay for payment channels, Apple push notification service for notification features, etc.

Mobile Application Security:

App security is of utmost importance, especially for fintech applications like money lending applications, as they use customers’ private information.

Your software developers should be aware of common cybersecurity threats like SQL injection, cross-site scripting, phishing, etc.

Your software developers should ensure the protection of users’ accounts by implementing two-factor authentication, using encryption techniques for securing users’ personal information and payment channels, etc.

Your development team can use APIs like Twilio for applying two-factor authentication and Plaid for secure payment channels, etc.

Latest Technologies:

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Emerging technologies like machine learning, big data, and blockchain can help you provide an advanced and secure user experience. 

ML algorithms can suggest to users better interest rates and loan options, etc. Moreover, AI models can read user app data in real time and offer personalized app interaction.

Conversational chatbots built on natural language processing models can help you deliver next-level customer support through text and audio. 

The AI-powered chatbots using sentiment analysis techniques can understand users’ messages and underlying tones effectively.

Read more on building an advanced chatbot for your business in our blog here.

Blockchain technology like smart contracts can be used to protect user personal data and loan agreements.

Read more about smart contracts implementation in our guide here.

Test your MVP

Running extensive test cases is important to ensure all functional and non-functional requirements of your mobile application are met. 

Your mobile app developers can conduct review sessions with senior developers and run tests including, unit testing, regression testing, and localization testing since these can be performed in the development stage.

Your app testers or quality assurance professionals can perform extensive testing routines including, integration testing, performance testing, security testing, etc. 

Moreover, app testers can use software tools to automate the testing process.

A prominent open-source testing tool for native and hybrid mobile apps is Appium. Testers can write test cases in any programming language and use the same API for any mobile OS. 

Moreover, there is also a feature allowing testers to run multiple tests in parallel. There is no need to install any software on mobile devices for testing purposes.

If you want to use OS-specific testing tools, then there are those available too. 

The Espresso test tool can be used for testing native Android mobile apps. It is highly scalable and provides a simple and easy-to-use API. 

The best part is that Espresso API is always updated to the latest features of Android OS.

XCTest by Apple can be used to run unit tests, performance tests, and UI tests for native iOS applications. 

XCTest seamlessly integrates with the Xcode testing workflow. It provides multiple features to iOS testers like no requirement for additional test components, is easy to use, supports continuous integration of code, and comes with a test recorder, etc.

Release MVP in the User Market 

After ensuring that your money lending mobile app is bug-free, compliant with industry standards and government regulations, and meets all the planned requirements, you can release it in the relevant app store.

Now, your main work at hand is to engage as many users as possible with your app. Most importantly, you want to get feedback from them. 

There are multiple ways to communicate with your customers, build their loyalty, and know their opinion on your mobile app.

You can integrate feedback forms, ask users to rate your app on the app store and leave a review, or use an NPS technique. 

A Net Promoter Score or NPS indicates how likely a customer is to recommend your app to other people. It gives an idea of user satisfaction and loyalty to the brand.

You can use tools like SurveyMonkey, Promoter.io, and Satismeter to gather customer responses. These tools help in implementing the above techniques.

Improve your MVP 

At this stage, you have all the data to improve your minimum viable product. You can use this data to reevaluate your marketing strategy and product development process. 

Most importantly, you are in a position to enhance your app features as per users’ requirements.

Tools like Qualtrics can help you perform data analytics to spot insightful trends in your user feedback data.

Implement Post Launch Mobile App Maintenance

App maintenance and enhancement are necessary to keep your app relevant in the user market. You will need to devise a post-launch maintenance plan and keep some app developers on board to help you implement it.

A mobile app maintenance plan will include code maintenance, security updates, app store list maintenance, UI and feature enhancements, performance monitoring, etc.

Such app maintenance will ensure that your money lending app works seamlessly on the latest versions of different mobile OS systems so that it can continue to fulfill your customers’ loan requirements.

Final Thoughts

Like every fintech-related mobile application project, loan lending app development is also an intricate development project. It requires adherence to financial regulations and industry standards, and so calls for exceptional software development skills.

A software agency expert in hybrid software development is a good option when hiring remote app developers to create a money-lending mobile app. 

Such mobile app development companies will let you hire developers according to your project needs along with providing better project management channels, etc. 

If you are on the lookout to build a skilled team of software engineers who know how to create a money-lending mobile app using the latest technologies, or need one or two extra developers, get in touch with DevTeam.Space via this form. 

One of our experienced technical managers will then get back to you to show you how our developers can assist you with your money-borrowing app development project.

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