Maybe it’s the coffee, but by mid-afternoon, the CoLab in the Absa Towers North has teams of people sitting at tables, writing on whiteboards and talking to one another. Some use standing desks, making them look somehow more important than their seated colleagues, but they’re all just part of the team.

It looks like more of a startup than a corporate environment, which is exactly what it’s meant to be. “It also helps when you’re trying to recruit talent, because it looks less like a bank,” says Jen Drabble, a product manager. This is a 'new way of working', she says. "It’s really about how you move away from a desk and the traditional corporate style and co-locate a team so that when there’s a problem, you’re sitting next to the person who can help you solve that problem."