The hidden benefits of team augmentation for financial services

Financial services operate in one of the most heavily regulated industries, with requirements that vary across jurisdictions and evolve constantly.

How team augmentation helps:

1. Specialized expertise on demand

Funding Circle's team at Nortal includes developers with deep experience in financial data processing and security. As Denislav Naydenov, a Tech Lead at Funding Circle explains:

The team is responsible for several core services which process financial data about loans, investments and repayments. These projects make use of Clojure, Kafka and Event Sourcing to secure quick and atomic updates of state which can be traced all the way back.

Denislav Naydenov
Tech Lead, Funding Circle

This architecture directly supports regulatory requirements for:

• Complete audit trails 

• Data lineage tracking 

• Transaction verification 

• Fraud prevention

2. Compliance-ready infrastructure

Nortal provides Funding Circle with workspace and infrastructure arrangements that meet financial industry standards, including:

• Physical security protocols

• Data protection measures

• Secure communication channels

• Regular security training and awareness programs 

3. Risk segregation

By working with a specialized partner, Funding Circle benefits from additional layers of compliance oversight and risk management, creating a more robust overall approach to regulatory requirements.

Financial services are particularly susceptible to economic cycles and market volatility. This creates a challenging dynamic: the need to innovate and grow during favorable conditions while maintaining the flexibility to adjust during downturns.

How team augmentation helps:

1. Controlled, incremental growth

Funding Circle began their team augmentation journey with just a small team of Ruby engineers in 2015. Over eight years, they incrementally scaled to nearly 30 professionals, aligning team growth precisely with business needs and market conditions.

2. Geographic diversification

By establishing a technology hub in Bulgaria through Nortal, Funding Circle reduced its exposure to localized economic disruptions and talent market fluctuations.

3. Financial predictability

Nortal's transparent cost+ model provided Funding Circle with clear visibility into team costs, supporting better financial planning during uncertain economic periods. 

As Richard Ashworth, Head of Engineering at Funding Circle, notes:

Nortal has played a major role in building our engineering teams. They've helped us recruit exceptional engineers, provided our teams with the space and resources to do their best work, and enabled us to feel part of the engineering community in Bulgaria.

Richard Ashworth
Head of Engineering, Funding Circle

Financial services organisations constantly balance innovation and risk management. Traditional hiring approaches often force difficult trade-offs between these priorities.

How team augmentation helps:

1. Technology risk management

Funding Circle was able to explore new technologies like Clojure without committing to extensive in-house hiring for skills that might later prove unnecessary. This created a lower-risk environment for technology experimentation.

Denislav Naydenov explains the advantage:

Clojure tries to solve many problems in software development as simply as possible. Everything is functions and data. Clojure is perfect for REPL-driven development.

Denislav Naydenov
Tech Lead, Funding Circle team

2. Team composition flexibility

As Funding Circle's needs evolved, they adjusted their team composition accordingly:

• Starting with Ruby specialists 

• Adding Clojure experts as data processing needs grew 

• Incorporating PHP developers for specific services 

• Building dedicated technical support capabilities

3. Rapid response to market changes

The financial services landscape changes rapidly with new regulations, competitive pressures, and technological shifts. Team augmentation enabled Funding Circle to respond quickly to these changes without lengthy hiring processes or restructuring.

4. Business continuity enhancement

By distributing its technical capabilities across multiple locations, Funding Circle enhanced its business continuity posture, a critical consideration for financial services companies handling sensitive customer data and transactions.

Cybersecurity is a top priority for any financial organisation, with threats growing more sophisticated yearly.

How team augmentation helps:

1. Security-first infrastructure

Nortal implements comprehensive security measures for their facilities and workspaces, including: 

• Secure physical access controls 

• Network security monitoring 

• Encrypted communication channels 

• Regular security assessments and audits

2. Security training and awareness

All team members receive specialized security training appropriate for financial services work, creating an additional layer of human security.

3. Multi-layer security oversight

With both Funding Circle and Nortal implementing security protocols, the combined team benefits from multiple security perspectives and approaches. 

Financial services technology requires specialized knowledge that bridges finance and technology domains.

How team augmentation helps:

1. Cross-team knowledge sharing

Funding Circle's team augmentation model facilitates knowledge sharing between their UK-based teams and Bulgaria-based specialists, creating a richer knowledge environment than either location could develop independently.

2. Domain expertise development

Over years of partnership, Nortal has developed deep financial domain expertise that benefits not just Funding Circle but potentially other financial clients through shared best practices (while maintaining strict confidentiality).

3. Fintech community engagement

Through Nortal, Funding Circle gains access to Eastern European fintech communities and perspectives, broadening their technology outlook.