Pulled field by field out of BetterBond's own June 2025 application, then checked against the ABSA, FNB and Investec forms. The banks ask for the same things in a different order — so you collect once, and print it however each bank wants it.
This is the real win. Most of the master record is already sitting inside the documents the buyer uploads — nobody should be typing it twice.
| Source document | What the AI lifts off it | Fields |
|---|---|---|
| SA ID or passport | Full names, surname, ID number, date of birth, gender, nationality, ID type, country issued | 8 auto |
| Latest 3 payslips | Employer name, employee number, basic salary, car and travel allowance, overtime, commission, PAYE, UIF, pension, medical aid, net pay | 14 auto |
| 3 months bank statements | Real income credits, every debit order, existing instalments, account and branch details, living expense patterns | 20+ auto |
| Credit bureau | Credit cards, loans, store accounts, balances, instalments, judgements, debt review, administration orders | 30+ auto |
| Proof of residence | Street, suburb, town, postal code, province | 5 auto |
| Offer to Purchase | Purchase price, property description and erf, seller, agent and agency, occupation date, suspensive conditions | 8 auto |
| Marriage certificate or ANC | Marital status, regime, country of marriage | 3 auto |
| Nobody can extract these | Dependants, home language, education, tobacco use, public-official status, first-time buyer, which debts to settle, preferred contact method | ask once |
Every auto-filled field is shown back as "We read this off your payslip — is it right?" That is a completely different experience from a nine-page form, and it is the thing you demo to an agent.
It is also a better affordability picture, because the income you submit is what actually landed in the account, not what somebody typed into a box.
Fourteen sections. Captured once per application, twice where there is a co-applicant.
Marital status is not a simple field. Single · Married ANC with accrual · Married ANC without accrual · Married in community · Divorced · Widowed · Other. It decides whose name the bond goes in and whether a spouse must sign, so it drives the rest of the application.
Tobacco use is there for the credit life quote, not the bond. Worth knowing before anyone asks why you want it.
This is the politically exposed person check. Banks will not process without it.
Previous employment is only asked when they have been under three years at the current employer and it is not their first job. That is a branching rule, not a field — the wizard should never show it otherwise.
Check every one of these against the bureau, not against the answer. People forget judgements and misunderstand debt review. A mismatch between what they ticked and what the bureau says is the single most useful flag the system can raise, and it protects them as much as you.
Types are credit card, mortgage, personal loan, instalment sale agreement, other. The settle flag matters more than it looks — settling a car or a card on registration changes the affordability calculation, and it is a decision the buyer has to make, not the system.
Income, gross
Salary deductions
Living expenses
"Rent — exclude if this payment will fall away." BetterBond puts that instruction right on the form, because buyers routinely declare the rent they are about to stop paying and under-qualify themselves. Build that prompt into the question.
Every one of these can be estimated from the bank statements and put in front of the buyer to confirm. That is far more accurate than asking someone what they spend on groceries.
| Block | Fields | Rows |
|---|---|---|
| Properties | Mortgage institution · property value · description · outstanding balance | 4 |
| Vehicles | Finance institution · vehicle value · description · outstanding balance | 4 |
| Credit cards | Institution · outstanding balance | 4 |
| Loans | Institution · outstanding balance | 4 |
| Investments | Institution · current value | 4 |
| Other | Institution · current value or outstanding balance | 4 |
| Totals | Total assets · total liabilities · net asset value | 3 |
ECTA Schedule 2 excludes agreements for the sale of land from electronic signature. So the OTP is wet-signed and scanned in by the agent, exactly as you said — and the platform should treat it as an upload, never offer to sign it.
The application form, declarations and consents are a different matter and can be signed electronically under ECTA, with a proper audit trail of who signed what, when and from where. That is most of the paperwork, so do not let the OTP rule drag the whole process back onto paper.
Watch one detail: BetterBond's form carries an "Initial" block on all nine pages plus separate signature and date blocks on three of them. If you print a pack for wet signature, every one of those has to be in the right place, or the bank sends it back.
You asked whether BetterBond and ooba use an API or an email address. Here is what I know and what I do not.
My understanding is that the large originators have system-to-system electronic links with the banks, built up over years and volume, while smaller brokers submit through each bank's broker or intermediary portal, and some still go by email to a dedicated originations desk. Which one applies to a new entrant is a question for each bank's broker desk, not for me.
But the build decision does not depend on the answer. Produce a properly assembled, bank-formatted PDF pack as the primary output. That works if you email it, works if you upload it to a portal, and becomes the human-readable artefact even after an API exists. Build the pack first, and treat any integration as an optimisation you earn later.
| Route | What it needs from the platform | When |
|---|---|---|
| Email to originations desk | One merged PDF pack plus named attachments, consistent file naming, a cover schedule | Day one |
| Bank broker portal | Same pack, plus a person to upload and key a few fields | Day one |
| Electronic integration | Field mapping per bank, credentials, testing, their timeline | After accreditation and volume |
Straight off the footnote on page one of their form: ABSA, First National Bank, Nedbank, Standard Bank, Investec, HiP (Housing Investment Partners), Sentinel, Auto Assist, Genfin and RMB Private Bank. That is the panel to aim at, and it is more than the usual four — Sentinel and HiP in particular serve buyers the big banks decline.
Estate agencies are accountable institutions in their own right and must verify the purchaser — which is why that "FICA purchaser" form is sitting in the same folder. They need the same ID, the same proof of address, the same company documents you are already collecting for the bond.
| # | Build | Why this order |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The master record above, as the database | Everything else reads and writes this. Get it wrong and every form is wrong. |
| 2 | Your own application form, printed from the master record | Looks like the BB and FNB forms, but it is yours. Prove the pack before the intake. |
| 3 | Document upload and extraction into the master record | Start with ID, payslips, bank statements. That is 40 of the fields. |
| 4 | Confirm-not-type review screen | The moment the buyer sees their own details already filled in is the demo. |
| 5 | Agency dashboard, outstanding items, automatic chasing | What the brokerage logs into and what makes one person able to run many deals. |
| 6 | Per-bank pack generation | Same record, four layouts. Add banks one at a time. |
It is tempting to start with extraction because it is the interesting part. Don't. A form you can fill in by hand and print as a credible bank pack is testable this week, and it proves the half of the system a bank will actually judge you on. The AI then fills a form that already works.