Axis Bank decreased onboarding time from 10 days to 2: Postman Case Study

Quick Overview

Axis Bank significantly decreased its developer onboarding time from 10 days down to just 2 days, and sometimes even one day, by centralizing their API documentation, enabling QA automation, and fostering cross-team collaboration using the Postman Enterprise platform.

Key Points: Axis Bank reduced its developer onboarding process from 10 days down to 2 days, with potential onboarding in a single day. The Chief Technology and Product Officer at Debat (responsible for digital innovation at Axis Bank) stated that APIs are the "oxygen" and that all features are API-driven. Postman allows Axis Bank to centralize all documentation and perform QA automation, making APIs available publicly for collaboration with startups and fintechs. Miha Garval noted that the API-first approach allowed him to define about 70% of the APIs and their IOs during the design phase itself. Using mock servers in Postman enables the front-end and QA teams to validate and test APIs immediately, reducing overall development time from six months to a couple of months, with some products launching in just one month. Postman Enterprise serves as the main collaboration tool utilized by the product, front-end, back-end, and project teams, providing features like collection runners, mock servers, and configurable environments.

Context: Sanja Jan, Chief Technology and Product Officer at Debat (Digital Business and Transformation), explained that the team's mission is to build banks for Gen Z and millennials, which began in December 2019 with a small team where documentation was scattered and collaboration was challenging. The discussion centers on how Access Bank leveraged the Postman platform to overcome these initial hurdles by establishing an API-first strategy and centralizing their development workflow.

Detailed Analysis

Axis Bank adopted Postman as a critical tool to drive digital innovation, viewing APIs as essential to their operation. Starting with scattered documentation, they implemented Postman Enterprise to centralize all API documentation, establishing a 'single source of truth' that benefits product, front-end, back-end, and project teams. This API-first approach, as described by Miha Garval, allows for the definition of 70% of API structure during the design phase, simplifying tasking and sprint planning. A major outcome is the massive reduction in time: overall development time dropped from six months to a few months, and onboarding time plummeted from 10 days to 2 days, sometimes less. Developers utilize features like mock servers exposed via Postman to allow parallel testing by QA and front-end teams, accelerating validation. Furthermore, Postman enables Axis Bank to expose APIs publicly, facilitating collaboration with external fintechs and startups.