Community manifesto

How did we get here:

In early 2019, we partnered with OfferZen, a leading tech talent marketplace, to explore how we could contribute to and support the tech sector. Like us, OfferZen shares a strong belief that software can fundamentally accelerate South Africa’s economic growth and wants to help developers in South Africa to achieve this.

Over the following months, we worked closely to identify ways to remove barriers in FinTech and enable developers to take control of their money through innovative solutions. This collaboration laid the foundation to start making Programmable Banking a reality for South African developers.

The journey gained momentum in December 2019, when we launched the Programmable Banking Beta program at OfferZen’s MERGE conference. This marked the start of building a developer community, centered around gathering product feedback and fostering collaboration within the tech sector.

On 15 March 2022, Programmable Banking was officially launched. This milestone would not have been possible without the invaluable input, contributions, and support of the developer community. Co-creating with our customers allowed us to build a product that developers love.

In 2023, the partnership between Investec and OfferZen concluded, and in October 2023 we saw the launch of the Investec Developer brand. Today, the Investec Developer community continues to thrive, with over 2,000 members playing a key role in shaping the Investec developer experience as we look toward the future of banking.

Purpose of the Community:

Writing code alone is not fun, building something new is even harder! Discovering and then refining those use cases and code snippets (don’t kid yourself, we all use code snippets!) is the other part, which is rarely effective when done in isolation.

Conversations with other passionate developers reveal ideas we never knew we had. Friendly debates help us clarify our views. A casual comment can uncover new ways for us to think and build. Interacting with diverse people radically expands our vision and insights into a problem.

Still, most developers work in isolation, without a collaborative coding environment. Large peer review sessions exist mostly within larger institutions. Friends and family mean well but rarely provide useful feedback.

Our core focus as a community is to support each other to unlock the potential of programmable banking for everyone. Working together as a tribe of South African developers who want to solve individual and business problems using Programmable Banking.

Core Principles and Values:

Our overall principles are guided and influenced by Investec’s values and adapted and moulded by the developers in the community.

We believe that the following values help create and sustain thriving developer communities.

1. We give first:

Before asking anything from the community, consider how you’re giving to the community. E.g. through code commits/answering other questions or building something others in the community can use.

2. We are curious:

Look at every interaction as an opportunity to learn something new and build on the ideas being presented.

3. We ask (and answer) questions in public spaces:

If you have a question or have the answer to a problem that you had, please share it in public channels. This way, we can all learn together.

4. We share what we are working on:

Sharing your ideas, code, and demos early and openly with the community is encouraged to promote collaboration and sharing of ideas within the community.

5. We make things that will help the community or others:

Building something that you share with and that can benefit others is always the best way to learn and grow as a community. It empowers you and the community to create things that we couldn’t do alone.

6. We help others build things:

Contributing to existing projects, even in a small way, e.g. feedback or ideas, fosters a sense of collaboration and co-creation within the community to build better, faster and more resilient projects.

7. We ALWAYS have fun building together:

While we’re working on serious things, we should always have fun creating cool things together.