Summary

Discover how Swedbank implemented feature flags to standardize release processes across 40+ development teams, increasing release cadence, reducing risk, and improving developer experience with Split feature management and experimentation (acquired by Harness). 

• Faster and safer releases: By using feature flags, Swedbank increased their release frequency and reduced the risk associated with new deployments.
• Automated continuous delivery: Split’s feature flags played a central role in Swedbank’s journey toward a fully automated continuous delivery pipeline.
• Improved developer confidence: With the ability to toggle features on/off, developers gained more control over releases, reducing stress and increasing confidence.
• Scalable and flexible implementation: Split’s ease of implementation enabled Swedbank to scale feature flag usage across more than 50 teams, from mobile to backend.

About Swedbank

Swedbank is a leading financial institution in Europe, with 7.3 million private customers and 615,000 corporate customers. The bank provides a variety of digital services, including online banking, mobile banking, insurance, and loan origination. As part of their commitment to delivering fast and reliable services to their large customer base, Swedbank invested in improving its software development processes, using feature flags to reduce release risks and increase deployment frequency.

By adopting Split’s feature flagging platform, Swedbank was able to streamline their release cycles, enabling more frequent and less risky releases while ensuring that teams worked more effectively across both frontend, backend, and mobile engineering.

Challenge

Improving release cadence and reducing risk

Swedbank’s development teams faced challenges with their software release processes, particularly in terms of coordination between frontend and backend teams. Without a centralized feature flag solution, it was difficult to synchronize deployments and ensure releases were seamless. Additionally, Swedbank’s in-house feature flagging system was not scalable enough to manage the complexity of their large codebase and multiple teams.

Markus Backman, Head Architect of Digital Banking at Swedbank, explains: “The thing that’s great about Split is that you can change the behavior of the product outside of a code deployment.” This flexibility was crucial for Swedbank as they sought a solution to streamline their release process while mitigating risk.

Solution

Automating and scaling software releases

Swedbank turned to Split for a more scalable and efficient feature flagging solution. By integrating Split across 50+ teams—ranging from mobile to backend—Swedbank was able to standardize feature flag management and introduce safer, more frequent releases.

Key benefits:

• Faster and less risky releases: Feature flags enabled Swedbank’s teams to safely roll out features, allowing them to deploy code more often without disrupting the customer experience.
• Seamless coordination across teams: By using Split to manage feature flags, frontend, backend, and mobile teams could deploy independently, ensuring smoother releases.
• Automated continuous delivery: Feature flags played a key role in Swedbank’s transition to automated continuous delivery, improving overall efficiency and speed.
• Increased developer confidence: Developers could push code with confidence, knowing they could toggle features on or off as needed, reducing stress and increasing productivity.

Markus Backman explains, “By using Split, we’ve seen a noticeable increase in the speed at which we can deploy, while still maintaining high confidence in our releases.”

Results

Higher release frequency and reduced risk

The adoption of Split’s feature flags resulted in significant improvements for Swedbank’s development process:

• More frequent releases: Backend teams now release features monthly, while frontend teams push updates multiple times a month, speeding up the product development cycle.
• Reduced release risk: Feature flags enabled teams to mitigate risks associated with deploying new features, allowing them to test changes in production safely.
• Increased developer happiness: Developers now feel more empowered and confident, knowing they can roll back features if issues arise, leading to a better overall developer experience.
• Scalable feature management: With Split, Swedbank scaled feature flag usage across multiple teams, ensuring smoother collaboration and consistent results across all platforms.

Business impact

Streamlined development and increased agility

Swedbank’s decision to implement feature flags has provided measurable business benefits:

• Improved release cadence: The ability to release more often enabled Swedbank to stay competitive in the fast-moving financial industry.
• Enhanced developer efficiency: The automation of the release process reduced manual efforts, allowing teams to focus on higher-value tasks.
• Better risk management: Canary releases and feature flags allowed Swedbank to test new features in real-time, reducing potential disruptions to customer-facing services.
• Seamless scaling: The platform’s ability to scale helped Swedbank manage their complex codebase and large development teams more effectively.

“Feature flags have completely transformed the way we release software. We can now deploy faster and more often, all while reducing the risks typically associated with new releases.” — Senior Developer, Swedbank

Future

Scaling software development with confidence

As Swedbank continues to evolve their development processes, Split’s feature flagging solution will play a pivotal role in supporting their future growth. The bank plans to further streamline their workflows with Split’s tools to deliver even faster, safer releases while continuously improving the customer experience. Markus Backman reflects on the partnership: “Split’s platform has been key to us achieving faster releases with less risk. As we continue to grow and scale, it will remain a vital part of our software development process.”