Regardless of your particular area of interest in the larger world of IT, you’re likely aware of the rise of fintech. It’d be difficult to miss, with billions in funding and thousands of fintech companies changing the way we interact with money. Banking, insurance, transactions and payment services are only some of the areas in which technology meets finance. And with cutting-edge solutions like blockchain and artificial intelligence, we can expect major transformations in the sector. But how can Ruby on Rails, a mature technology, become an advantage to fintech companies?
RoR is not a young framework - it’s been around long enough to become one of the most stable solutions of its kind. Built to make web development fast and efficient, Ruby on Rails has become a favourite of startup development teams, used for fast prototyping and building complex apps in the most cost-effective way. Large corporations can feel safe using it, too - it’s stable, secure and supported by a thriving community. These advantages are very relevant for fintech.
Fast delivery and fast prototyping, which improve the productivity of the engineers working on a project, can make or break it. A concept can be put into lines of code without wasted resources, and a pitch to investors can be made with a working app, ready to be tried out. It’s also easy to build and run tests in Rails - and for any fintech solution, app security is of paramount importance. Rails makes the testing process pleasant, and the community is robust enough to provide help should it be needed. As a mature, well-known solution, Ruby on Rails offers more stability than many other competing frameworks. There are no obvious holes in it, and whenever an issue appears, the community is quick to fix it.
Fast iterations are an important element of the development process: they allow for the quick removal of bugs and other issues. This could have a direct impact on security, not to mention user experience. And while we are on the topic of security - Rails has built-in security systems (e.g. ones for avoiding session hijacking or cross-site scripting), and it’s easy to add tested, reliable solutions written by the community. Finally, Rails can be easily integrated with another language to support fast computation (e.g. with Go). This way, a development team can do what they need to do to make their app unique, without losing all the benefits of Rails.
Fintech businesses that use Ruby on Rails on production
Here are only a few examples of Rails in action in the finance sector. You’ll find that the framework is relevant in a broad range of businesses, from payment platforms, through loans and crowdfunding, to insurtech.
This mobile payment platform provides solutions for inventory, payroll, deposits, analytics, point-of-sale, and customer engagement. In a number-of-features ranking it would be near the top. It also doesn’t require a monthly fee from users - instead, they pay a certain rate only for swiped, keyed, and online transactions.
Fundera is a B2B lending platform that allows users to borrow funds from both individuals and businesses. It offers several loan options (such as term loans, SBA loans), up to $100K at an affordable interest rate. It also comes with useful functionalities like merchant cash advance, invoice financing and business loan calculators.
This equity-based real estate crowdfunding platform is based on Ruby on Rails. It helps investors choose commercial investments through a vetting system, thus helping users generate passive income. “Investments on EarlyShares projects average 7% preferred returns and 18% IRR,” according to their website.
Insurtech is a growing subfield of fintech. Kin gives its users access to an “affordable and simplified insurance process”. Their focus is mostly home insurance, and the insurance types they specialize in include personal liability, loss of use, and medical insurance.
Conclusions
After looking at the examples above, it quickly becomes clear that Ruby on Rails is a very relevant solutions for fintech. Thanks to RoR’s fast prototyping, stability, security, ease of integration and modular approach, it offers a long list of benefits with very few disadvantages.
Want to know how Ruby on Rails can help your fintech business?
iRonin’s team of experts have years of experience in building RoR apps for various industries, including finance.
