How China Agricultural Bank Reached Leading Continuous‑Testing Level in DevOps Evaluation

With the widespread adoption of DevOps integration across industries, testing has become a critical link for improving R&D operational quality. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s "14th Five‑Year Plan for Software and IT Services" emphasizes enhancing software quality management, monitoring, early warning, and evaluation capabilities, calling for a complete testing certification system. Test‑driven development boosts efficiency, delivery capability, and quality assurance, making software testing a strategic focus in national software technology development.

On December 15, 2023, the GOLF+IT New Governance Leadership Forum was held in Beijing, where the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) announced the latest batch of DevOps and AIOps standard assessment results.

China Agricultural Bank (ABC) submitted two projects for evaluation: the "Intelligent Non‑Performing Asset Disposal Platform Phase IV" and the "Online‑Offline Integrated Tag Service Phase II". Both projects passed the CAICT Continuous Testing (CT) Level 3 assessment, indicating that ABC’s capabilities are among the domestic leaders.

ABC is the first state‑owned bank to achieve Level 3 Continuous Testing certification.

Assessment organization: China Academy of Information and Communications Technology

During this batch of DevOps assessments, ABC also passed two Continuous Testing evaluations, five DevSecOps evaluations, and a total of 28 CAICT DevOps standard assessments, including 12 Continuous Delivery, 9 DevSecOps, 2 Technical Operations, 2 Agile Development Management, 1 Application Design, and 2 Continuous Testing projects.

We interviewed ABC R&D Center Deputy General Manager Cai Shizhi and Project Management Office General Manager Wang Zhenfeng to discuss their experiences and share best practices.

Q&A

Q: Please introduce yourself, your company, and the projects you evaluated.

Cai Shizhi: The ABC R&D Center supports the bank’s digital transformation across retail, corporate, investment, fund management, leasing, asset management, and insurance services, serving over 800 million customers. It comprises a headquarters and eight regional divisions with more than 6,000 engineers.

We have strengthened forward‑looking research, embraced industry best practices, and selected two projects for the first banking‑sector Continuous Testing assessment to benchmark our testing system against national standards.

The Intelligent Non‑Performing Asset Disposal Platform is part of the digital credit management platform (C4), providing end‑to‑end online processing of non‑performing assets. The Online‑Offline Integrated Tag Service aggregates customer tag data and delivers high‑timeliness, convenience, and scalability across multiple channels.

Q: How does achieving Level 3 Continuous Testing make you feel?

Cai Shizhi: We are honored to be among the first banks to pass Level 3 Continuous Testing. The assessment validated our testing processes, provided detailed improvement suggestions, and boosted confidence in advancing our testing framework.

The Continuous Testing standard evaluates processes, general testing capabilities, and performance metrics, comprehensively enhancing our testing competence.

We will continue to consolidate best practices, expand testing applications, and support safe production and digital transformation.

Q: Why is a continuous‑testing system across the software lifecycle important for enterprises?

Cai Shizhi: Continuous testing creates an end‑to‑end loop from requirements to operations, shifting testing left to development and right to production. It demands robust testing foundations, lifecycle coverage, and organizational alignment, ultimately standardizing processes and strengthening software quality.

Q: What changes and benefits has the Continuous Testing assessment brought to your team?

Cai Shizhi: The assessment gave us a clear maturity benchmark, helped identify gaps, and validated our progress. It also offered professional guidance, enabling the team to adopt industry‑leading practices and develop skilled talent.

Q: What successful experiences can you share about implementing continuous testing internally?

Cai Shizhi: Since 2018, we have integrated testing with development and operations, adopting both external standards (DevOps, TMMi) and internal initiatives to improve processes, tools, and metrics. We introduced version verification before production, reduced low‑impact issues, and used incident analysis to continuously refine testing designs.

Q: Why did you choose to participate in this assessment?

Wang Zhenfeng: Since 2019, we have completed 19 DevOps‑related assessments. This evaluation allowed us to externally validate our quality management model, adopt advanced methodologies, and maintain a leading position in the industry.

Q: What improvements resulted from the assessment, and what value does it bring to the business?

Wang Zhenfeng: The assessment enhanced requirement‑stage testing participation, refined design‑stage testing strategies, and established a continuous feedback mechanism in our pipeline. It improved automation coverage, lifecycle data management, and aligned testing with continuous delivery, delivering higher quality and faster releases.

Q: What challenges did you face during the assessment and how were they solved?

Wang Zhenfeng: Challenges included tight schedules, cross‑functional collaboration, metric system construction, and interpreting standards for banking specifics. We addressed them through iterative planning, close teamwork across departments, enhancing metric tools, and deep discussions with experts to align standards with our context.

Q: What are your future plans for continuous‑testing development?

Wang Zhenfeng: We will deepen quality assurance capabilities, continue benchmarking against higher maturity levels, and disseminate best practices to further raise our R&D maturity.

Q: How do you see the future of testing technology?

Wang Zhenfeng: Testing will become more intelligent, automated, and integrated with development and operations. AI will drive new testing tools, while security testing will gain prominence. Test engineers will need broad skills in CI/CD, continuous testing, and security.

DevOps Capability Maturity Model Overview: The model, led by CAICT with industry partners, defines standards across agile management, continuous delivery, technical operations, application design, DevSecOps, tools, business value, collaborative development, continuous testing, performance measurement, platform engineering, and SRE. It has been recognized by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and adopted internationally.