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Insights and Expertise

Hidden costs of slow Delayed payment testing is expensive

Delayed payment testing increases operational expenses
payment testing in several ways:
• Lengthy testing cycles increase the cost of launch-
ing new products and prolongs transformation de-
livery schedules.
• Defects identified late in the game are exponentially
more expensive to remediate.
• Unexpected delays require additional expenditure
to keep programs on track.
• Repetitive manual testing eats up limited resource
budgets.
• Lack of transparency creates reactive responses in-
stead of proactive initiatives.
• Slow testing prevents businesses from keeping up
with emerging customer, regulatory and market de-
mands.
The hidden cost of legacy testing practices

By Anthony Walton Most current payment testing models were built for a
Iliad Solutions different era, when systems were typically homogenous,
and release cycles tended to be longer. Testing was often
he mindset around payment testing remained siloed and delayed until late in the delivery process.
unchanged for years: it was seen as a necessary
evil, part of the background fabric of financial ser- By the time issues were identified, programs were nearing
T vices transformation programs that consumed Go-Live with little time or budget for remediation. This
time, resources and budget with little recognition. When created huge cost pressure at the end of every delivery
payment processes were relatively manual and release cycle as teams rushed to meet deadlines.
cycles were measured in months, not weeks, inefficient,
costly testing practices could be tolerated. Not anymore. Slow testing's impact is felt across the business. Modern
payment ecosystems are more dynamic, more complex
Payment ecosystems don't sleep. Customer needs don't and more fragile than ever before. Maintaining multiple
sleep. Every transaction has real-time consequences, pro- instant payment schemes, integrated digital wallets, legacy
cessed across APIs, cloud environments, payment rails and and cloud-native services, open banking connections
third-party providers. Financial institutions must keep and third-party interfaces with zero service disruption
the lights on while delivering flawless customer experi- requires absolute precision.
ences and meeting stringent demands from regulators.
Today, a defect in any one area can cause failure across
In this new era, accountability for mistakes is financial as an entire ecosystem. Finance teams are understandably
well as operational. But a shockingly high number of orga- anxious about the cost of downtime.
nizations still use outdated payment testing practices and Modern testing improves cost control
tools that were developed for a world that moved slower,
with fewer regulations and less financial pressure. In Payment testing doesn't need to be a cost center. Quite
today's world the cost of slow testing can be catastrophic. the opposite. By embedding continuous testing into the
payment delivery lifecycle, financial institutions can detect
Modern, progressive financial providers prioritize speed. defects earlier to minimize the cost and operational impact.
Testing too slowly creates costly bottlenecks that impact
the business and its customers as a whole. Late discovery Modern testing also allows banking teams to automate
means higher remediation costs; missed release dead- repetitive tasks to improve accuracy and conserve limited
lines create delayed programs and wasted expenditure.

Poor testing doesn't just mean poor outcomes—delayed
releases, disruptive migrations, operational vulnerabili- Payment testing doesn't need to be
ties. It costs money. A lot of money. Particularly as testing a cost center. Quite the opposite.
touches every area of the business:

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