The Monday Roundup: what we are watching this week | Feb 9th

By Puja Sharma

The Monday Roundup sets the scene for the week’s biggest news stories, industry deals, and upcoming events. For Prime subscribers only.

Core modernisation accelerates across banking markets

Ivory Bank has completed the implementation of the ICS BANKS Universal Banking Solution from ICS Financial Systems Ltd. (ICSFS), finalising a core banking overhaul across its operations in South Sudan.

The five-month project covered the bank’s headquarters in Juba and 11 branches across South Sudan and Khartoum. The deployment replaces Ivory Bank’s legacy infrastructure with a unified, real-time core banking platform designed to centralise operations, enhance governance controls, and improve risk visibility across retail and corporate business lines.

The go-live marks ICSFS’s entry into the South Sudanese market, extending the vendor’s footprint across Africa at a time when banks in emerging markets are accelerating investments in core modernisation to improve resilience, regulatory compliance, and product agility. Core banking modernisation has become a priority for financial institutions across frontier and developing markets, where legacy systems can constrain product innovation and limit integration with digital channels. Vendors offering modular, service-oriented architectures and flexible deployment models, whether on-premises, hybrid, or cloud, are increasingly positioning themselves as enablers of digital transformation and financial inclusion initiatives.

ICSFS states that ICS BANKS® is built on a service-oriented architecture and can be deployed across multiple environments, supporting integration and compliance with evolving regulatory standards. The implementation at Ivory Bank underscores continued demand for end-to-end core replacement projects in African banking markets seeking operational consolidation and long-term scalability.

ServiceNow and Fiserv have expanded their partnership to deepen the use of artificial intelligence across financial services operations, as banks and credit unions accelerate efforts to modernise legacy systems and streamline workflows.

Under the expanded agreement, Fiserv will deploy ServiceNow’s platform, including its generative AI solution Now Assist, across its internal IT and customer service functions. The rollout is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2026, with an initial focus on optimising Fiserv’s own operational processes before broader downstream impact for financial institution clients.

The collaboration reflects a wider industry push to embed AI into core banking workflows, particularly as institutions face mounting pressure to improve efficiency, reduce operational risk, and enhance customer responsiveness. Fragmented systems and manual processes have long slowed functions such as merchant onboarding and dispute resolution. By integrating AI-driven automation directly into workflow management, the companies aim to reduce friction across these processes.

Now Assist uses generative AI capabilities to manage and prioritise complex operational tasks. According to the companies, the technology will enable Fiserv teams to detect and address technical issues earlier, helping prevent service disruptions for client banks and credit unions. Over time, the initiative is expected to contribute to faster response times and improved service consistency for end customers.

Agentic AI reshapes core banking and operations

Oracle Corporation has launched a new agentic artificial intelligence platform for retail banking, marking a strategic push to deepen AI adoption across financial institutions. The platform, introduced through Oracle Financial Services at the company’s Financial Services Summit in New York, is designed to embed AI agents across customer-facing and operational banking functions.

The enterprise-grade platform comprises AI-infused applications, design tools, development frameworks and pre-built AI agents. According to Oracle, the system is intended to enable real-time, tailored customer interactions across digital and physical channels, including online, mobile and branch environments.

A central feature of the offering is its “human-in-the-loop” governance model. Oracle said the AI agents will operate with oversight from banking staff, who will provide supervision and ethical governance. The approach reflects growing regulatory and operational scrutiny around the deployment of advanced AI in financial services. The platform forms part of Oracle’s broader “AI-first Intelligent Bank” framework, which envisions an agentic ecosystem integrated across core banking layers. In practical terms, the company said the AI agents can provide bankers with real-time product information, anticipate delays in processes such as loan applications, and recommend next steps to customers before handing off to underwriting teams. Oracle Financial Services plans to roll out hundreds of AI agents covering both retail and corporate banking use cases over the next 12 months.

Abu Dhabi-based ADIB Capital Limited has launched the ADIB Digital Infrastructure Fund, a Sharia-compliant public fund incorporated in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), as investor appetite for exposure to digital infrastructure continues to grow.

The firm, a wholly owned subsidiary of Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB) PJSC and regulated by the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA), said the fund will target high-conviction listed equities in companies operating across data storage and data transmission, with a geographic focus on North America and Europe.

The launch reflects increasing institutional interest in digital infrastructure assets, which have emerged as a core allocation theme amid accelerating demand for data centres, fibre networks and mobile connectivity. Structural drivers such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, eCommerce and 5G adoption have intensified capital requirements in the sector, while supply constraints in data storage and related assets have supported valuations and long-term growth expectations.

According to ADIB Capital, the fund adopts a bottom-up investment approach, analysing individual companies alongside broader economic trends. It will maintain a concentrated portfolio of approximately 20 to 25 securities, focusing on businesses trading at what it assesses to be discounts to intrinsic value, to deliver competitive risk-adjusted returns.

What is the Buzz

Ripple has obtained a full EU Electronic Money Institution (EMI) licence from Luxembourg’s financial regulator, the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF). This approval allows the U.S.-based blockchain payments firm to broaden its cross-border payments infrastructure across Europe. The licence follows Ripple’s recent authorisation in the UK, where it secured both an EMI licence and cryptoasset registration from the Financial Conduct Authority.

Ripple had received preliminary approval for the EU licence last month and has now met all regulatory requirements to gain full accreditation. With this licence, the company can expand its Ripple Payments platform, which integrates cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, and local currencies, and has already processed more than $95 billion in transactions.

This milestone adds to Ripple’s growing regulatory portfolio, which now includes over 75 licences worldwide. It comes on the heels of the company’s $40 billion valuation achieved in 2025 after a $500 million funding round backed by major investment firms, including Fortress Investment Group, Citadel Securities, and Galaxy Digital.