Finpace has unveiled Halcyon, an advanced AI solution seamlessly integrated with its core banking platform, designed to empower financial institutions across Africa. Halcyon aims to accelerate modernization efforts and transform change management into a controlled, repeatable process, moving away from resource-intensive engineering cycles.

Financial institutions in Africa, including banks, microfinance institutions, and payment providers, are navigating the dual challenge of scaling digital services while managing highly complex operating environments. These complexities often involve supporting diverse payment rails and schemes, extensive agent and merchant networks, intricate cross-border transactions, multi-currency operations, and frequent policy updates driven by regulatory compliance and risk management. In such a dynamic landscape, the primary limiting factor for innovation is not the ambition for new products, but rather the time and effort required to translate business objectives into functional system behavior.

Halcyon introduces a revolutionary operating model for the Finpace core banking platform. It establishes an intelligent AI layer at the heart of core operations, directly connecting to enterprise data and operational workflows. This strategic placement allows the system to accurately interpret business intent, orchestrate necessary actions across the platform, and evolve autonomously as products, policies, and customer needs shift. Crucially, Halcyon moves beyond the traditional method of hard-coding every new capability into rigid backend services. Instead, it enables institutions to introduce, refine, and extend functionality through AI-driven orchestration, all while maintaining robust governance.

Many financial institutions currently utilize workflow and orchestration tools, such as Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) engines, which are widely recognized for modeling and executing processes. However, these tools typically necessitate specialist design work, manual updates, extensive testing, and coordinated releases to adapt flows as business requirements change. Finpace’s vision with Halcyon is to leverage AI to achieve the same orchestration outcomes with significantly greater speed and effectiveness. Furthermore, Halcyon offers enhanced flexibility in how changes are expressed and executed.

Rather than relying on building and maintaining every workflow primarily through diagrams and intricate rulesets, Halcyon empowers teams to articulate their intent in clear business terms. The AI then translates this intent into governed actions across the Finpace core and all integrated systems. This innovative approach is specifically tailored to address the constant need for change that African institutions face daily. Teams frequently need to adjust critical processes such as onboarding and servicing journeys, implement new limits and controls, update pricing and fees, manage collections workflows, handle exceptions, resolve disputes, and optimize agent and merchant operations. Historically, these changes would trigger a lengthy pipeline of specifications, development, testing, and complex release coordination across multiple disparate systems. Halcyon is meticulously designed to diminish this dependency by shifting routine changes from a code-first delivery model to one of controlled, AI-driven orchestration, all while preserving essential oversight and accountability.

David Kerr, Head of AI Solutions at Finpace, emphasized, “Across Africa, institutions are innovating quickly, but core change often remains the bottleneck. Halcyon is delivered with our core banking platform to remove that bottleneck. It helps teams execute change materially faster, with governance built in, so products and policies can evolve in step with the market.”

Halcyon is also designed to facilitate phased modernization, acknowledging that many African institutions need to operate new digital propositions concurrently with existing legacy cores and third-party processors during transitional periods. Halcyon can be initially deployed with the Finpace core within a defined domain, and then progressively expanded as integrations mature. This strategy helps institutions achieve early, visible outcomes while effectively mitigating transition risks.

Key capabilities of the Halcyon solution include intent-driven orchestration, which directly links business objectives to approved system actions. It provides context awareness through direct connectivity to enterprise data and operational workflows. Robust governance mechanisms support regulated delivery, incorporating role-based access, comprehensive approvals, and auditable traces of all actions and decisions. Furthermore, it offers extensive integration support to coordinate workflows across the Finpace core and any existing systems during periods of coexistence and transition. Finally, Halcyon features a flexible change model engineered for continuous improvement as product constructs, policies, and customer needs invariably evolve.

Halcyon is particularly relevant for institutions engaged in building and scaling a wide array of propositions, such as retail and SME banking, microfinance lending, advanced wallet and account programs, agent banking, merchant services, and complex multi-country rollouts. The success of these initiatives hinges on the institution’s ability to iterate rapidly while consistently maintaining operational control and clear accountability.

Halcyon is available immediately as an integral part of Finpace core banking implementations and modernization programs for African financial institutions. Teams have the flexibility to commence with a focused scope, such as enhancing onboarding and account servicing, optimizing lending workflows, or strengthening operational controls and reporting, and then expand its coverage as new services, payment rails, and markets come online. For more information on how Halcyon can accelerate institutional transformation, details are available on Finpace’s website.