Nedbank partners with OpenSpaceto create value for clients
This South African lender sees 360° photo documentation disrupting
conventional practices in construction.

Nedbank Property Finance is the largest commercial
property financier in South Africa. In August 2018,

Seeing opportunity in a crisis

Nedbank Property Finance extended its capabilities andUsually, funders of property development transactions

opened its doors to funding opportunities in key African

require an inhouse team to verify the work on site. Thesemarkets, outside of South Africa.

site inspections occur every month to monitor delivery
risk (cost, time and quality elements) and to approve

Over a short period, with a skilled and experienced

drawdowns or payments based on pre-agreed milestones

team providing unique structuring solutions to clients,

to ensure that the money is used to complete theNedbank Property Africa scooped the prestigious award

construction of the property in line with this scope. And

for notable transactions on the continent – Top Realbecause of the particular nuances of each market, loan

Estate Bank in Africa in 2019 and again in 2021.

sizes as well as the complexity and type of buildings varyfor each project.

The 2021 award was a unique achievement, as the Nedbank
team was constrained with travel restrictions, which madeSeasoned professionals in the construction industry

it even more challenging to offer funding solutions tohave always been skeptical about new technologies,

clients outside of South Africa. Travel restrictions meantand although the Nedbank Disruption Team came acrossfunders were faced with difficulty in funding development

OpenSpace in 2017, the platform was not leveraged at

projects that required continuous monitoring andthe time.

payments for completed work at construction sites. It wasthen that Nedbank introduced the OpenSpace platform
to unlock funding for development projects to help clients
when it mattered most.

OpenSpace is an incredible tool
to monitor construction risks
proactively.”
Genevieve Naidoo,
Divisional Executive: Property Finance PM,
Valuations & Sustainability Nedbank CIB

But then the Covid-19 pandemic hit, and travel was

This enabled clients to track site progress at theirrestricted by severe lockdown regulations. Clients

fingertips and to facilitate site-office communication

were impacted severely and Nedbank’s internal project

easily using the core functionalities of OpenSpace. They

monitoring teams could not access sites that did

could post notes and questions using the Field Notes

continue to operate. Without inspections, no payments

feature and receive an instant response.

could be made, which posed the risk of huge delays andadditional preliminary and general costs. However, toThe time-stamped images improved overall

maintain client delivery, Nedbank’s project management

recordkeeping of on-site progress, which enhanced

team resorted to doing site inspections via WhatsApp

management reporting for Nedbank’s clients, and thevideo calls. For obvious reasons, it was far from ideal, andSplitscreen feature gave clients the ability to compare

the team needed a more sustainable and professional

monthly progress, saving the client and the professional

way to execute their function. They saw a golden

teams time and money.

opportunity for OpenSpace.

Providing OpenSpace to clients
When other banks could not or would not undertake
development finance for clients because of the inability“OpenSpace is an incredible tool to monitor construction

to monitor risk, Nedbank’s view was the opposite, posing

risks proactively,” says Genevieve Naidoo, Divisional

the question: ‘In a time of crisis, how can we partner with

Executive: Property Finance PM, Valuations &our clients and offer them innovative solutions?’

Sustainability Nedbank CIB. “Initially we were concerned
about the additional cost of the platform, since property

Leveraging OpenSpace to create value
for clientsdevelopment projects are sensitive to extra costs. But
the benefits of OpenSpace far outweigh the cost of
the technology in terms of saving time for professional

The Nedbank journey with OpenSpace began byteams. Being able to pay our clients quicker creates

unlocking opportunities for four clients in three Africana huge benefit for them in managing their cash flow

countries – Kenya, Morocco and Mauritius.

cycles.”OpenSpace enabled Nedbank to pay clients on time andThrough Nedbank’s partnership with OpenSpace, clientsseamlessly by viewing 360° photo documentation and

who take up this solution can have their professional

proactively engaging with the clients on costly change

teams up and running on the app in less than an hour, withorders and potential delays. Clients saw the benefit ofaccess to support teams to assist them with any queries

using OpenSpace immediately. The ease of capturing

on how to use the app.

360° images by placing a camera on a hard hat, and theability to access these images anytime from anywhere in

Nedbank plans to scale the use of OpenSpace across its

the world, gives clients valuable information about theirportfolio, including in South Africa, where 25 sites areproject.

scheduled to use the app by the end of 2022.

Clients could simply log into OpenSpace from their
computers to see the latest jobsite conditions, despite
being in a different time zone or even a different country.