Pending Regulations Squeezing Financial Services Sector to Speed Software Code Clean Up; Many Turning to Generative AI and Unit Tests

Diffblue announced dramatically increasing demand for AI-powered software unit testing solutions, especially among banks, as firms rush to meet new, stringent software code quality regulations.

A year ago, the European Parliament approved the Digital Operational Resilience Act, which will enter into force in 2025. It includes six key components for financial services to address to bolster their digital resilience. ESAs will increase their supervision on financial institutions and will implement stronger controls.

“AI automation is changing the banking industry in many ways but it is also helping firms automate and improve compliance initiatives to meet the requirements of stricter software code quality standards,” said Mathew Lodge, CEO of Diffblue, developers of Diffblue Cover, an automated Java software unit testing solution.

The financial stakes are high.

Last December UK regulators fined bank TSB more than $60 million for failures in risk management and governance after an IT outage locked two million customers out of their accounts. The fine stemmed from a botched migration of TSB customers to Spanish bank Banco Sabadell which had acquired TSB in 2015.

The mistakes cost CEO Paul Pester his job and TSB had to spend nearly half a billion dollars to resolve the problems and compensate customers. Regulators accused TSB of failure to organize and control the IT migration program adequately and manage the operational risks.

DORA will require companies to focus on a Digital Resilience Strategy accompanied by a Digital Resilience Framework. It requires an end-to-end view of the entire ICT landscape that supports critical business functions. Proper unit testing of software can mitigate these risks tremendously, documenting in advance that the code will perform as intended.

Diffblue Cover is helping scores of banks adopt DORA and keep regulators at bay when modernizing legacy mission-critical Java applications. Unit tests written by Diffblue Cover enable rapid understanding of complex applications allowing customers to innovate with confidence. It’s also the only fully-automated generative AI solution that can autonomously write new code, improve existing code, accelerate CI pipelines and provide deep insight into risks associated with change without requiring manual review.

Source: Diffblue media announcement