More innovation, over the line, faster
More innovation on the go than your team can carry? Lesaka Technologies, a JSE- and Nasdaq-listed fintech group, set out to modernise its whole web presence and keep its consumer platforms moving at the same time. Our pods sped it up.
At a glance
- 01
Client. Lesaka Technologies, a fintech group listed on the JSE and Nasdaq.
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Industry. Fintech: consumer, merchant and enterprise.
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What we did. Group website, consumer payments and mobile app delivery.
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First release. About nine weeks, from build to delivery.
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Team. Innovation Pods working in parallel, since joined by middleware, backend and QA streams.
More on the go than one team could carry
The group had grown into three divisions, and its ambition had grown with it: one connected group web presence, consumer mobile and web platforms that keep evolving, and momentum across every initiative at once.
They wanted every division's marketing team to publish its own content, without waiting on engineering.
Meanwhile the consumer app and the platforms behind it had to keep moving, and their engineers already had a full roadmap.
Something had to give, and it couldn't be the date.
Our pods plugged in. Their innovation sped up.
We didn't arrive as extra hands waiting for instructions. We took ownership: of the mobile delivery inside their engineering team, and of the group web programme from the first sprint to release. Work that had been waiting its turn started shipping, on several fronts at once.
The first major milestone landed two days early. The consumer platform went live alongside it. And the group kept handing us more.
That's what a pod is for: not more people in the room, more innovation over the line.
How we built it
Two ways of working ran side by side: inside their team, and leading a programme of our own. These were the decisions that made both move fast.
Owning delivery inside their team
On their mobile app, our engineers worked inside their established technology environment, to their architecture, priorities and ways of working. We owned the mobile delivery we were assigned: implementation, the technical problem-solving and the shared commitments, not just tickets handed over. Their team got more capacity and more experience without changing how they work.
One programme, released in stages
We structured the programme as a series of releases, each with its own scope, milestone and go/no-go gate. Every stage was built, validated and delivered before the next one leaned on it, which gave the business predictable milestones and working software early instead of one all-or-nothing day.
A platform each division runs itself
We moved the content out of the code into a headless content platform with governed workflows: role-based access, draft, review, approve and publish, and a full audit trail. Editors build stories from rich blocks (images with captions, video, podcasts and attributed quotes), so a page looks right without a developer touching it. Each division publishes its own pages, and we handed over editor guides with the platform.
A first release with real substance
The first release carried more than 15 responsive templates and over 80 features, built to the client's approved designs for desktop and mobile. It includes a newsroom with search, filters and rich article types, the group's corporate story with an interactive timeline and leadership pages, a careers presence, and pages for each audience.
Leads straight into their CRM
Merchant and enterprise enquiries flow straight into their CRM. We built lead capture only where it earns its place: the two business-to-business lines.
Wrap what works, build around it
On the consumer platform, payment journeys that already worked were kept, not rewritten, so the new platform went live without putting a single working transaction at risk. The front end is server-rendered and regenerates pages as content changes, so they stay fast, and automated tests guard every release.
Built to a listed company's bar
Services are containerised and shipped through automated pipelines, with security and performance designed in at every layer. The programme sets demanding standards for performance, accessibility and security, and the platform was built to them from day one.
Pods in parallel, scaled to the work
One pod built the group platform while another worked on their consumer products, and QA joined the group pod before the first cutover. Capacity is reserved monthly and steps up or down between releases, so the team is always the size the next stage needs.
Each division moves at its own pace
Their marketing teams publish copy, campaigns, news and leadership updates themselves, with no developer and no deployment.
New releases arrive through the same gates, and the group has one partner it can hand the next piece of innovation to, in whichever way of working it needs.
The innovation keeps moving, on every front at once.
They kept handing us more
The work has grown across their technology: mobile, web, middleware, backend engineering and a dedicated QA stream.
"In all my career, Codehesion is the best consultancy I have ever worked with. They are technical experts, they work really fast, but also just have a great culture and are great people to work with." David de Villiers, CTO, Lesaka Technologies
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