Industries across the world have experienced a definite shift towards microservices, with niche offerings becoming the norm. This is also true within the financial services industry, where focus and efficiency are empowering specialists to offer faster, better solutions to clients while operating within the regulatory framework. Andaria is one such organisation that has perfected a microservices strategy and offers finetuned solutions to its portfolio of clients.

“I don’t believe in re-inventing the wheel. The whole world is adopting a microservices approach and it goes beyond financial services. Take car manufacturing, for example - many brands share the same engine design, so what they focus on is the smaller enhancements and features offered on each model. The analogy also applies to many other areas,” Kurt Azzopardi, Andaria’s CTO, says.

He explains that what Andaria offers is an orchestration layer, which combines a number of different technologies from specialist service providers – ones which complement Andaria’s own service provision. This enables their clients to easily access a core of products and services to that meet their needs, all seamlessly combined in one place. “It also means that as we deploy new systems and technologies within our portfolio of services, we can continue to provide our clients with the best fit for their business, even as their business grows and evolves”.

This approach has led to Andaria maintaining a strong competitive edge in a landscape where technology evolves very fast. “We made a conscious choice about Andaria’s identity. The strategy was never to be just another Electronic Money Institution - there are already too many of those,” Mr Azzopardi says. “instead, we identified embedded finance as an area where we can make an impact – so that’s where we’re headed next.”

Put simply, embedded finance refers to the integration of financial services and products into non-financial platforms such as mobile apps, e-commerce websites or even social media sites. What this means in the real world is that, instead of having to visit a bank or draw upon their separate online banking facilities, clients can access financial services seamlessly within the platforms they already use.

“Facebook Marketplace works well as an example in the consumer world. Most people use the platform to socialise, but it also offers a marketplace where you can buy things. Imagine having your own Facebook Wallet that is embedded directly into Facebook. When you buy something from the Marketplace you will be able to automatically pay with the click of a button,” Mr Azzopardi says, adding that in this case Facebook would not need to get into the nitty gritty of regulation, payment security, financial fraud and so forth, because they are leveraging a licensed third-party product that has already fulfilled all the regulatory requirements.

“This is why embedded finance and microservices are closely related – in both instances, you’re bringing together different technologies and embedding them within your ecosystem to offer a new product. This is precisely our niche at Andaria - we believe efficiency rules! Clients want to do everything with one click of a button instead of having to visit a number of different platforms – this is the level of simplicity we aim to deliver through our solutions.”

“The financial services industry has become so broad and revolutionised that it’s become an innovation enabler across many different industries – and that’s the principle we leverage. Irrespective of your business size or sector, Andaria’s approach enables you to use a single platform that leverages the best specialist technologies,” he continues.

Building on this strategy, Andaria also prides itself on being fully cloud-based, implementing Platform as a Service (PaaS) environments that have allowed the company to laser-focus their investments on the specific needs of their client base.

“Before, companies used to invest in servers, networks, firewalls and so forth to enable them to carry out their business. This comes at a huge cost. Buying the infrastructure is expensive and you need experts to manage and maintain it and to keep it secure. Scalability is a headache. What we do is let leading cloud computing platforms like Microsoft Azure to handle all that, so we can instead focus on our fintech offering.,” Mr Azzopardi says.

“Our data is located in two different regions and it’s accessible with one click. If we had to own the infrastructure for that, I can’t even imagine the headache of making that work. It’s definitely not where we should be putting our focus,” he adds. “The same applies to coding - that's why we’re committed to no/low code technologies.”

“We want to ensure that our developers and tech team don’t get lost in coding tasks. For Andaria it’s about giving your client a solution. Ultimately, although it’s nice to write elegant solutions, it doesn't necessarily translate into tangible benefits for the business,” Mr Azzopardi says, adding that the lifespan of code is so short that it would make no sense for the team to use their energies on this area.

“Maintaining code is an entire process within itself. Each developer has their own personal style, there are frameworks to update, backups to create and every line is a potential bug where something can go wrong. Instead, we’ve opted to use ready-made components that can be assembled to create a superior service or product. These have already been heavily tested and developed by the world’s best engineers, so we know they’re reliable. It means we can alleviate all the worries related to code - think of it as drag and drop – and instead focus on the solution and the product that we want to deliver.”

Mr Azzopardi adds that Andaria’s success is contingent on maintaining constant exposure to new technologies and knowing what is out there. “If you stay with what you have, you become outdated very fast. A big part of what we do is to consistently review what our existing solutions or partners have to offer and whether they can be leveraged by us to meet changing market needs.”

He adds that Andaria prizes agility, ensuring that core team members have a comprehensive understanding of the business problems they are solving and the financial and compliance aspects of their roles. He believes that this is also important from an individual, professional perspective, as giving input and output to developers without context means that they don’t have the tools to carry out proper testing, or approach it from the customers’ point of view.

“At Andaria we pride ourselves on always using best practices while being compliant within our licence.” he concludes. “We constantly strive for excellent standards, and we do not shy away from challenging evolution. We foster innovation by navigating the technological landscape to enhance our solutions and deliver the best possible experience and outcomes for our clients.”