Case Study
Modernising a leading Qatar retail bank’s mobile banking with flutter & microservices
Discover how we helped a leading retail bank modernise its mobile banking platform using Flutter, Java Spring Boot microservices, and MuleSoft API Gateway, achieving 99.9% uptime, 35% faster development, and a secure, scalable, and future-ready digital experience.
Output Achieved
About the project
Our client, a leading retail bank in Qatar, envisioned building a next-generation mobile banking platform that could deliver seamless, secure, and scalable experiences for its rapidly expanding digital customer base. The goal was to move away from legacy systems and establish an agile, customer-centric, and future-ready ecosystem for retail banking.
The Challenge
The bank’s existing platform, built on older proprietary frameworks, faced multiple challenges:
High dependency on licensed tools that restrict innovation and cost efficiency.
Complex integrations with legacy middleware and third-party systems.
UI/UX inconsistencies across Android and iOS platforms.
Slow release cycles due to monolithic architecture and tightly coupled modules.
Limited scalability to support rising transaction volumes and digital expansion.
The vision was clear to reimagine mobile banking with a modern, modular, and open architecture that was lightweight, adaptable, and built for the future.
Our Approach
To realise this transformation, we adopted a two-layered architecture integrating a Flutter-based mobile application with a Java Spring Boot microservices backend, connected through the MuleSoft API Gateway.
This approach combined design thinking, agile engineering, and secure API integration, ensuring seamless performance, faster releases, and high customer satisfaction.
Mobile Application Development with Flutter
Flutter, Google’s open-source framework, enabled a single unified codebase for both Android and iOS platforms.
Key Advantages:
Unified Codebase – Eliminated duplication and reduced development time.
High Performance – Compiled to native ARM code for smooth and fast interaction.
Hot Reload – Enabled rapid testing and UI iteration.
Consistent UI/UX – Skia rendering engine ensured pixel-perfect visuals.
Future-Ready – Simplified feature integration and SDK updates.
Impact: 35% faster development cycles and 40% reduction in maintenance efforts.
Human-Centred Design through Design Thinking
Design Thinking was at the heart of the process, ensuring that user needs, business goals, and technology were aligned.
Discovery: Conducted user interviews, market studies, and journey mapping.
Define: Mapped insights into problem statements and service blueprints.
Design: Created wireframes and prototypes emphasising accessibility, multilingual support, and brand consistency.
Testing: Iterative usability testing to eliminate friction points early.
Impact: Enhanced usability, inclusivity, and trust, improving overall user satisfaction.
Backend Platform with Java & Spring Boot Microservices
The backend ecosystem was re-architected using modular, cloud-native microservices built on Java and Spring Boot, enabling faster performance and greater scalability.
Key Features:
Microservices for account, card, transfer, loan, and authentication.
API Gateway via MuleSoft for routing, token management, and orchestration.
In-Memory Caching (Redis) for rapid data retrieval.
Containerised Deployment (Docker) for scalable cloud operations.
Load Balancing for peak performance.
Advanced API Security with token-based authentication and RSA encryption.
Impact: Reduced latency by 30% and achieved 99.9% system uptime.
Integration & Interoperability
Using MuleSoft API Gateway, the system achieved seamless interoperability across all channels and services.
Highlights:
Middleware as an orchestrator for efficient routing.
RESTful APIs for fast, standard data exchange.
End-to-end encryption and cybersecurity compliance.
Real-time integration with third-party services like KYC, merchant, and payment gateways.
Impact: Enabled instant login, transfer, and payment experiences with enterprise-grade security.
Scalability & Performance Optimisation
The system was designed for horizontal scalability, ensuring each service could scale independently during high-traffic scenarios.
Impact:
Supported transaction spikes with zero downtime
Flexible infrastructure for rapid service rollout.
Seamless digital expansion without re-architecting the core system.
Solution
The final solution featured a robust, future-ready architecture built on two key layers:
Mobile Application (Flutter):
Modular architecture with data, domain, and template separation.
Centralised Design Factory for uniform UI/UX.
Pre-built reusable components for faster rollouts.
Microservices Platform (Java + MuleSoft):
API Gateway for routing and security.
Spring Discovery Service for service registration and load balancing.
Redis caching and asynchronous message queues for optimised performance.
Secure session management for transaction integrity.
This combination empowered the bank to process millions of secure transactions daily with reliability and speed.
The Impact
35% faster development through a unified Flutter codebase.
40% boost in performance with native compilation.
30% faster backend response through caching and microservices.
99.9% uptime with dynamic load balancing.
Zero dependency on proprietary licenses — reducing operational costs.
High customer adoption driven by intuitive design and seamless performance.
This transformation empowered the client with full code ownership, lower costs, and faster innovation cycles, positioning them as a digitally progressive financial institution ready to meet evolving customer demands.
