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Can it get more exciting than that? This autumn we teamed up with our new client, the London-based Munich Re Digital Partners (MRDP), to work on a sophisticated API that is revolutionizing on-demand insurance.
MRDP is a business venture that aims to change the way insurance is offered on PCs and mobile devices. While there are many InsurTech start-ups offering new ways to bring insurers and customers together, they often focus on the frontend and UX. MRDP offers them the back-end technology and helps them develop their disruptive products more effectively. The project we work on will also be a vehicle for AI-based capabilities.
FINGO was chosen as the nearshoring partner for the project because of our expertise in building large APIs with global exposure and heavy traffic loads. Currently our shared London/Wrocław team consists of 5 developers and 2 DevOps engineers and is set to grow in the beginning of January 2016.
The real dawn of FinTech and InsurTech
With hundreds of FinTech disruptors in Silicon Valley, London and elsewhere, the “old” financial giants have decided to join the revolution. The strategies range from buying the new players, through backing them financially to launching own start-ups. Broadly, the idea is to speed-up transactions with consumers, improve trading model, offer on-demand and analysis to organizations.While financial technology and the surrounding eco-system of start-ups are not new, it is probably now when the still rather conservative world of banking and insurance is starting to embrace digital solutions at a greater pace. In many cases it is not only necessity, but also an opportunity for new revenue streams. In London, the proximity of the “old” City and IT crowds of Shoreditch, are a perfect breeding ground for a radical change. With developers turning financiers, and financiers turning techies, the line between them is slowly blurring. At FINGO, we’re quite proud to be a part of this transformation.
Two locations, one team
Building cross-border teams is never easy, but geographical proximity helps. Wroclaw and London are less than two hours away by a direct flight, so it is easier to bring developers from both cities together. With only 1 hour of time difference, office hours in FINGO and MRDP are similar and communication is direct. Joint Scrum also brings people together. Rather than to separate the development process between the two locations, we decided to have one scrum and meet every morning for stand-ups. Slack does a good job as our primary communication tool, and Jira helps us manage the workload. We’re all keenly waiting for the moment, when we’ll buy the first insurance through a website or app powered by the API we are building.
