The Arab Energy Fund
Scaling and Evolving Corporate Lending
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
At a Glance
- Deployed Arrangement Architecture (AA), Facility Lending, and Club Loan modules from Temenos Core
- First implementation of its kind across bilateral, club, and syndicated lending structures
- Automation of complex agency functions including fee management, pro-rata reconciliations, and covenant tracking
Founded in the 1970s as the Arab Petroleum Investments Corporation (APICORP), the Arab Energy Fund is a specialist financial institution focused on midstream and downstream energy investments. Its business activities span direct equity investments, trade finance, and structured loans, including syndicated and bilateral arrangements where it often acts as facility or syndication agent. It supports over 130 active facilities with a combined balance sheet exceeding USD 5.88 billion.
In 2024 it marked its 50th anniversary with an expanded mandate that includes sustainability and ESG-driven financing. That vision came with complexity, and need for further enhancements of the system with new and more innovative modules.
Ready for more
For years, the Fund relied on Temenos’ SL module for corporate lending. The solution provided a strong foundation, but as deal structures became more complex and the Fund’s role expanded, the need for enhanced flexibility and automation grew.
With increased lending volume and more sophisticated structures, the Fund sought a modern platform that could streamline operations and support the full lifecycle of every loan.
Co-creating the future
The Fund worked closely with Temenos to define a solution that matched its operational needs.
Temenos really studied the market. They looked at customers’ needs, where existing solutions were falling short, and where the market was heading. Everything was about taking the guesswork out, and instead focussing on the facts and the evidence.
– Mohammad Khatib, Director, Information Technology at The Arab Energy Bank
The outcome of that exercise was the selection of Facilities Lending and Club Loan modules of Arrangement Architecture (AA), that are offered within Temenos Core Banking.
Temenos went on to lead the business requirements design phase, with Systems Arabia (formerly NDC) providing implementation support and integration expertise.
Go-live was achieved in November 2024, with immediate results.
Capable of more complexity
The new solution gave Arab Energy Fund the power to structure and service bilateral, club, and syndicated deals with far greater efficiency.
Manual processes were replaced with automations. The Fund can now handle multi-party disbursements, track covenants in real time, and reconcile fee and principal payments with accuracy and speed.
We delivered everything we set out to achieve. It’s simpler, more flexible, and more accurate; and all this relieves pressure from our teams.
– Mohammad Khatib, Director, Information Technology at The Arab Energy Bank
With greater operational efficiency, the Fund has increased its capacity to serve as agent on more complex deals. And because each facility can be configured individually, the platform supports the Fund’s ambitions to lead higher-value, structured transactions in the region.
Additionally, the AA architecture has enabled product-level configuration and categorization, streamlining how data is captured and improving what’s possible in reporting and analysis
“When your products are designed the way your business operates, reporting becomes a by-product,” Mohammad said. “Now we get the data we need, in the format we need it. And we feed these back into the business, so we have a continually loop of insights and improvements.”
Going greener
Technology is also helping the Fund deliver on its ESG commitments. Since 2020, it has launched green bonds and invested in sustainable energy projects. Its new Temenos modules allow for these ESG-linked products to be structured with the specific parameters needed for compliance and performance tracking.
These tools have further enabled our ESG strategy. We can now create and manage green loans with the precision and transparency required.
– Mohammad Khatib, Director, Information Technology at The Arab Energy Bank
More automation
With lending modernized, the Fund is now expanding its transformation. It is currently implementing Temenos Payments Hub (TPH) and exploring Temenos SaaS and AI-based analytics.
Internally, it has also launched an automation project called Intelliflo, combining Microsoft Power Automate, RPA, and Co-pilot AI to streamline operational tasks outside the core platform.
These solutions give the potential for further automation, in turn allowing the Fund to focus resources on higher-value tasks, such as serving more complex customers, and delivering higher-impact deals, all while staying aligned to its ESG vision.
Every year, we aim to do something new in the system, so we keep evolving. With Temenos, we have the platform and the partnership to do exactly that.
– Mohammad Khatib, Director, Information Technology at The Arab Energy Bank
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