Crédit Agricole

Goal

Crédit Agricole Bank Polska knows that customer behavior is changing. As customers visit their local branches less often, the bank’s digital channels needed to improve to meet their customers’ expectations. But in the fast-moving world of technology and mobile devices, Crédit Agricole’s app was no longer up to their own standards. To meet their customers’ needs, the bank needed a new mobile app, quickly, and were committed to building the best one in the market.

Rather than revamping their existing native apps, they decided to create an entirely new app from scratch. With this blank slate, they had carte blanche to explore creative solutions to meet their business needs, allow flexible growth, integrate with other components, and boost Crédit Agricole to the top of the market.

Why Flutter?

The team needed a modern, reactive, and design-focused solution that would allow them to create apps for multiple platforms. The technology had to allow them to add new features quickly and be easy to maintain, as well as meet the bank’s challenging UX requirements for a seamless customer experience.

While many of their peers were developing apps with React Native, the Crédit Agricole team was interested in trying something new. Their existing native apps had become increasingly expensive to maintain, features were beginning to diverge between platforms, and it was becoming challenging to bring new features to market quickly.

So after developing a proof of concept with several agencies and platforms, the Crédit Agricole team chose LeanCode - software studio from Warsaw specializing in mobile banking apps, and Flutter for its cross-platform functionality, efficiency, and focus on design and to build their next generation app with.

Their solution

For the next year, a team of 250 people, including nearly 30 Flutter developers, worked together on one of the biggest Flutter apps ever created. Because of the enormous scale, the project was divided into 12 business squads and 4 technical squads. Each developer was assigned to one or more squads. They also developed a new Flutter-based design system that allowed them to easily update components on the go in response to bugs or lack of consistency.

For a deeper technical discussion of the team’s Flutter experience, check out this e-book they created to document their experience.

“I think we chose the best technology for our case, and from a time perspective, I can say we’re happy about this decision. Flutter gives us a lot of possibilities for further app development and its functionalities.”

• Tomasz Czerwiński, Strategy and Architecture Department Director and Technical Tribe Owner at Credit Agricole Bank Polska – “CA24 Mobile” banking app, Crédit Agricole

“Flutter is enterprise ready, meeting the high standards of product development procedures and security requirements of the banking industry.”

• Łukasz Kosman, CEO @ LeanCode

Results

After 12 months, Crédit Agricole launched the MVP of their new app with Flutter. The new app is easier and cheaper to maintain and allows the team to react quickly to changes. It has also made managing and delegating tasks between developers easier by removing the need to distinguish between Android and iOS functionality. The new Flutter-based design system has allowed them to create new animations that help their app stand out, including their new avatar. Finally, Flutter saved the team a lot of time, as they no longer had to work on separate solutions for Android, iOS, or Huawei platforms, and could deliver new features more quickly, outpacing the rest in the banking market.