How Mozn is supporting fraud prevention in Saudi Arabia

At LEAP 2025, Saudi technology company and provider of enterprise AI tech Mozn is showcasing its advanced AI-powered risk and compliance platform, FOCAL, designed to transform fraud prevention and AML compliance.

As Saudi Arabia advances its Vision 2030 ambitions, AI is playing a crucial role in securing digital transactions and mitigating financial crimes. In this interview, we speak with Malik Alyousef, co-founder and COO of Mozn, to explore how its AI-driven solutions are supporting industries such as banking, fintech and e-commerce, ensuring businesses stay ahead in compliance, security and innovation.

What are you showcasing at LEAP?

At LEAP, we are showcasing the latest evolution of our AI-powered risk and compliance platform, FOCAL, with a strong focus on end-to-end fraud prevention and management. FOCAL is built around two key suites: one focused on fraud prevention and the other on AML compliance. With the rapid expansion of the digital landscape in the kingdom and the region, we’ve observed a significant rise in fraudulent activities. Fraudsters are constantly developing new methods to exploit vulnerabilities across industries.

In response, we’ve expanded our Fraud Prevention Suite to include three new products: device fingerprinting, fraud analytics, and fraud management as a service (FMaaS) — providing real-time end-to-end fraud prevention and management for businesses in the region and beyond.

Our new products are designed to offer fully managed fraud prevention and management services to businesses across industries such as BFSI, fintech, e-commerce, telecom, and government. This approach allows organisations to focus on their core operations and deliver exceptional service to their customers, while FOCAL’s experts handle fraud risk on their behalf.

Share insights on how the AI set is to revolutionise tech in Saudi Arabia.

AI is set to revolutionise technology in Saudi Arabia by becoming the driving force behind digital transformation across industries. With the Kingdom’s ambitious Vision 2030, AI is enabling smarter decision-making, automation, and efficiency in sectors like finance, healthcare, and government services.

A key impact will be in fraud prevention and AML compliance, where AI-powered solutions, like FOCAL help businesses detect fraud in real-time, mitigate financial crimes, and ensure regulatory compliance across industries including BFSI, fintech, e-commerce, and telecom, enabling smarter risk management and streamlined compliance processes.

What is exciting here is that Saudi Arabia is actively investing in it, whether through AI research, digital infrastructure, or nurturing local AI talent. The Saudi government has launched initiatives aimed at establishing the country as a major player in artificial intelligence, data analytics, and advanced technologies.

As a result, AI is shaping new business models, improving risk management, and transforming industries in how they operate, innovate, and compete on a global scale.

How are tech products leveraging AI to enhance fraud prevention and compliance for businesses in Saudi Arabia?

The rise of automation and AI is not just fueling growth for good but it’s also being leveraged by fraudsters and criminals to execute highly sophisticated fraud that traditional rule-based systems just can’t keep up with anymore.

For example, we at Mozn are leveraging AI to enable businesses to detect and block emerging fraud patterns before they can cause severe damage. FOCAL Fraud Prevention is designed to protect businesses against evolving fraud threats with unparalleled precision and leverages AI, data science, and device intelligence to proactively detect and mitigate emerging fraud patterns, anomalies, hidden fraud networks, and repeat offenders in real-time without impacting user experience. By prioritizing precision, adaptability, and user-centric design, FOCAL Fraud Prevention Suite secures digital interactions, protects business reputations, and drives trust in an increasingly complex digital landscape.

What are the biggest financial crime risks organisations in Saudi face today, and how do tech solutions help mitigate them?

That’s an interesting question. Right now, the biggest financial crime risks in Saudi Arabia include money laundering and account takeover-related fraud. The challenge here is particularly account takeover-related fraud as once an account is compromised it can be used for a range of crimes including money laundering, terrorism financing, and unauthorised transactions, among others.

Moreover, with the rise of digital banking, compliance with evolving regulatory frameworks is crucial. AI helps organisations stay ahead of compliance requirements while ensuring robust financial crime prevention, allowing them to focus on growth while mitigating risks.

For instance, our AI-powered solutions are revolutionising the way businesses detect, mitigate, and prevent financial crimes. Through AI-powered, real-time transaction monitoring, comprehensive customer onboarding and sanction screening, and end-to-end fraud prevention and management, FOCAL is enabling businesses to focus on their core operations while experts at FOCAL manage their financial crime risk and help them meet regulatory requirements.

With evolving regulatory frameworks in Saudi Arabia, how is Mozn ensuring its tech solutions stay ahead in compliance and risk management?

At Mozn, we enable businesses to not only prevent financial crimes and fraud but also deliver a frictionless compliance experience. We take a proactive approach in ensuring that not just our solutions are up to date but in fact, our clients are following the best practices and implementing the latest regulatory updates to not just meet Saudi’s regulatory requirements but to further follow recommendations from intergovernmental bodies like FATF.

We work closely with regulatory bodies, financial institutions, and compliance leaders to ensure that our solutions meet both local and international compliance standards. The goal is simple — help businesses reduce compliance burdens, mitigate risks, and operate securely in an increasingly regulated environment.

How do you see AI-driven fraud prevention transforming industries such as banking, fintech, and e-commerce in Saudi Arabia?

AI-driven fraud prevention is fundamentally transforming industries like banking, fintech, and e-commerce by shifting from static, rule-based systems to dynamic, adaptive models. For instance, for the banking sector, we at FOCAL leverage advanced machine learning algorithms to analyze vast amounts of device and transactional data in real-time, identifying subtle anomalies that may indicate fraudulent activity including detecting money mules. This not only reduces financial losses but also enhances regulatory compliance and customer trust. For fintech companies, which operate in highly competitive and fast-evolving markets, AI offers the agility to continuously learn from new fraud patterns, significantly cutting down on false positives and streamlining customer onboarding processes.

In the e-commerce space, where the volume of transactions is immense and customer experience is the centre of the business, we leverage AI and device fingerprinting to secure transactions without causing undue friction for genuine customers. The competitive edge lies in AI’s ability to evolve with emerging threats, providing a robust, scalable solution that outperforms traditional methods in both accuracy and efficiency.

Tell us your plans for the year.

This year is set to be a year of bold expansion, relentless innovation, and continuous evolution. We’ve already built a strong presence across the MENA region, and we’re just getting started. Our vision is to expand into new markets, enhance our solutions, and stay ahead of the ever-evolving financial and technological landscape.

As financial threats grow more sophisticated, so must fraud prevention. That’s why we continuously advance our AI-driven solutions, ensuring they become even more adaptive, intelligent, and future-proof. Our goal is to equip businesses with the most cutting-edge tools to operate securely, efficiently, and with confidence in an increasingly complex digital world.

But we don’t believe in standing still. 2025 is all about scaling, innovating, and pushing boundaries —  because when it comes to security, compliance, and AI-driven fraud prevention, standing still is never an option.