Mozn and STC Bank Deploy AI-Driven FOCAL to Combat Financial Crime in Saudi Arabia

Mozn Partners with STC Bank to Deploy AI-Powered Financial Crime Platform FOCAL in Saudi Arabia

October 1, 2025

Mozn and STC Bank have entered a strategic agreement to deploy FOCAL, an AI-driven financial crime platform. The move signals a clear push to strengthen security, compliance, and trust across Saudi Arabia's digital banking ecosystem.

What FOCAL Brings to the Bank

FOCAL equips institutions with Financial Crime Intelligence to detect and prevent financial crime, produce risk insights, and streamline compliance. It combines real-time intelligence, advanced analytics, and automated workflows to improve speed, accuracy, and auditability.

• Transaction monitoring with risk-based scenarios and alerting
• Sanctions and PEP screening with ongoing monitoring
• KYC/CDD enrichment and risk scoring
• Case management and SAR/STR-ready documentation
• API integration with core banking and data providers
• Audit trails, explainability, and model governance support

Why This Matters for Finance and Compliance Teams

By adopting FOCAL, STC Bank is improving its ability to safeguard customers, meet regulatory requirements, and scale digital services in a complex operating environment. The alignment with local and global standards will matter to auditors and regulators alike.

For context on expectations, see guidance from the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

"The rapid pace of digitalization has created new opportunities but also new risks for financial institutions. FOCAL empowers financial institutions with real-time intelligence, advanced analytics, and automated compliance workflows that enable them to act decisively against evolving threats. With FCI at its core, FOCAL helps institutions like STC Bank set new benchmarks for resilience and trust in digital banking. This partnership demonstrates how homegrown innovation can safeguard customers, meet regulatory expectations, and accelerate the secure growth of Saudi Arabia's digital economy." - Abdullah Alshubrami, Chief Commercial Officer, Mozn

"AI is reshaping the future of finance, and we see it as a catalyst for both innovation and trust. By integrating Mozn's FOCAL platform into our operations, we gain the agility to anticipate emerging threats, enhance customer confidence, and accelerate Saudi Arabia's digital economy. This partnership reinforces our role as a pioneer in next-generation banking and reflects our commitment to setting new standards of security and intelligence across the Kingdom's financial sector." - Ibrahim Alqahtani, Director Anti-Fraud, Bribery and Corruption, STC Bank

Practical Next Steps for Banks and FinCrime Leaders

• Unify data sources (core banking, payments, CRM, KYC, external lists) and define a common risk taxonomy.
• Calibrate scenarios by segment; start with material risks and iterate using alert quality metrics.
• Stand up an alert triage and QA function; measure precision, recall, and time-to-disposition.
• Strengthen case management: investigation playbooks, escalation rules, and SAR/STR templates.
• Implement model risk governance: documentation, explainability checks, and periodic validation.
• Track compliance KPIs: false-positive rate, investigation cycle time, SAR timeliness, and regulatory findings.
• Train analysts on typologies, data lineage, and tool usage; rotate feedback into scenario tuning.

Strategic Impact

This partnership blends local AI expertise with a leading digital bank's scale and ambitions. Expect tighter controls, faster investigations, and stronger customer trust-all critical for sustained growth in digital finance.

Looking to explore AI tools for financial operations and compliance? Review curated options here: AI tools for finance.