Hi Community! Trust everyone is keeping safe. I am exploring the idea of building a #Neobank (App) with end-to-end banking capabilities. In the process of exploring this space, I have come across multiple Apps (N26, Revolut, Monese, etc) and explored their stacks in detail. The confusion remains to be the Backend Tech to be used?
What would you go with considering all of the languages such as Node.js Java Rails Python are suggested by some person or the other. As a general trend, I have noticed the usage of Node with React on the front or Node with a combination of Kotlin and Swift. Please suggest what would be the right approach!
As others mentioned, the problem domain is around data. From my experience, data means strongly typed entities. It might be good however to start off with a dynamic language such as Python (with Django) just to build a prototype, but once the models have been proved to be valid I'd go with statically typed language such as java/Go (I prefer Go but that's a whole different conversation) as you get compile time guarantees for type safety.
An alternative (or addition) to all of the above is the use of 'strong protocols', such as Protocol Buffers, Avro, Thrift and the likes. In this case you get type safety and stability between communicating backend services, while deciding and changing on whatever backend service language you want. That goes to say that your problem is not related to programming language decision but to a much profound understanding of what's important for the business to be created and be valuable.
As a general note, I don't think you should go, if you've got commercial aspirations, with any language that you'd have hard recruiting people who actually know what their doing. In Israel it would mean take Kotlin out of the equation
Use the language which works well for the developers you have or have available. If you're starting, building a first iteration is far more important than worrying about what language might be best to solve a problem you may never have.
When hiring, look for developers, not "node developers" or "java developers" having people who recognise and are willing to adapt means you can have the flexibility you will need to solve as-yet unforeseen issues. Hire people who are wed to a specific language and you will be bound to that language, regardless of whether it's most appropriate or not.
Hey! Thanks for the response. I do agree with this line of thought, currently I do have an established team of Folks who are pretty good at NodeJS and related stacks (MEAN, MERN, Meteor etc.) along with expertise in Flutter, Native Apps along with AWS as well. I think this would constitute the core App and then integrations all across can take place. Would you have any reading material on the Serverless front in relation to Neobanks / Digital Banking platforms? Thank you.
