A record number of exhibitors have lined up for the three-day Saudi Arabia International Oil & Gas Exhibition (SAOGE) 2010 that opens here today.
Close to 190 companies will host in excess of 8,000 visitors as industry representatives from 21 countries will be attending SAOGE 2012.
The International Exhibition Service (IES) and Dhahran International Exhibitions Center (DIEC) have teamed as co-organizers of the event. They are extremely proud that SAOGE has maintained its position as the sole oil and gas exhibition in the Eastern Province, and has continued to deliver an essential platform for key industry professionals, specialists and decision-makers.
“Attendees travel from across the Gulf region, and beyond, to Dammam where SAOGE provides the perfect platform to meet, network, learn and strengthen relationships,” the IEC said in a statement.
Launched in 2009 at the 2nd Edition, the initiative to support the Kingdom’s Saudization program continues this year with the “SAOGE Student Program,” which once again offers the industries’ next generation a place to ask questions of the experts, as they consider their career options.
An extremely interesting and high-level group of industry and country representatives will participate in the opening ceremony.
Piero Zipoli, president of IES, which organizes several exhibitions specializing in oil and gas all over the world, said: “We pay special attention to the Saudi Arabian International Oil and Gas Exhibition (SAOGE) and regularly see great demand from multinational companies to participate and be at the heart of the industry. SAOGE clearly offers them a platform for more insight into the possibilities for new investments, developments and technologies, aimed at the global petroleum sector.”
In addition to the considerable industry endorsements that SAOGE enjoys, SAOGE 2012 will also be supported by the Saudi Arabian Section of American Institute of Chemical Engineers (SAS-AIChE) and the Bilateral US-Arab Chamber of Commerce (BUSACC).
The American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) is a professional society that provides a forum for the advancement of the theory and practice of the Chemical Engineering profession, and the Saudi Arabian section (SAS AIChE) holds meetings and company visits to support this. Based in Houston, BUSACC is an association that serves as a conduit to create strategic connections between prominent US and Middle East/North Africa (MENA) organizations. Their board of advisers, is gathered from a cross-section of the major global oil and gas companies, including ExxonMobil Corporation, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), GDF Suez Energy North America and ConocoPhillips.
Meanwhile, SABIC have confirmed their participation and will be joining SAOGE 2012 as a new gold sponsor. SABIC joins an already prestigious group of gold sponsors who continue to support SAOGE, such as Abdulla Fouad Holding Co., Al-Abdulkarim Holding Co. and Industrialization & Energy Services Co. (TAQA).
Key oil and gas exhibition opens in Dammam today
Key oil and gas exhibition opens in Dammam today
Saudi-built AI takes on financial crime
- Mozn’s FOCAL reflects the Kingdom’s growing fintech ambitions
RIYADH: As financial institutions face increasingly complex threats from fraud and money laundering, technology companies are racing to build systems that can keep pace with evolving risks.
One such effort is FOCAL, an AI-powered compliance and fraud prevention platform developed by Riyadh-based enterprise artificial intelligence company Mozn.
Founded in 2017, Mozn was established with a focus on building AI technology tailored to regional market needs and regulatory environments. Over time, the company has expanded its reach beyond Saudi Arabia, developing advanced AI solutions used by financial institutions in multiple markets. It has also gained international recognition, including being listed among the World’s Top 250 Fintech Companies for the second consecutive year.
In January 2026, Mozn’s flagship product, FOCAL, was named a Category Leader in Chartis Research’s RiskTech Quadrant 2025 for both AML Transaction Monitoring and KYC (Know Your Customer) Data and Solutions, placing it among 10 companies globally to receive this designation.
Malik Alyousef, co-founder of Mozn and chief technology officer of FOCAL, told Arab News that the platform initially focused on core anti-money laundering functions when development began in 2018. These included customer screening, watchlists, and transaction monitoring to support counter-terrorism financing efforts and the detection of suspicious activity.
As financial crime tactics evolved, the platform expanded into fraud prevention. According to Alyousef, this shift introduced a more proactive model, beginning with device risk analysis and later incorporating tools such as device fingerprinting, behavioral biometrics, and transaction fraud detection.
More recently, FOCAL has moved toward platform convergence through its Financial Crime Intelligence layer, a vendor-neutral framework designed to bring together multiple systems into a single interface for investigation and reporting. The approach allows institutions to gain a consolidated view without replacing their existing technology infrastructure.
“Our architecture eliminates blind spots in financial crime detection. It gives institutions a complete view of the user journey, combining transactional and non-transactional behavioral data,” Alyousef said.
DID YOU KNOW?
• Some electronic money institutions using the platform have reported fraud reductions of up to 90 percent.
• The platform combines anti-money laundering and fraud prevention into a single financial crime intelligence system.
• FOCAL integrates with existing banking systems without requiring institutions to replace their technology stack.
Beyond its underlying architecture, Alyousef pointed to several areas where FOCAL aims to differentiate itself in a competitive market. One is its emphasis on proactive fraud prevention, which assesses risk throughout the customer lifecycle — from onboarding and login behavior to ongoing account activity — with the goal of stopping fraud before losses occur.
He described the platform as an “expert-led model,” highlighting the availability of on-the-ground support for system design, tuning, assessments, and continuous optimization throughout its use.
“FOCAL is designed to be extended,” Alyousef added, noting its adaptability and the ability for clients to customize schemas, rules, and data fields to match their business models and risk tolerance. This flexibility, he said, allows institutions to respond more quickly to emerging fraud patterns.
Alyousef also emphasized the importance of local context in the platform’s development.
“The platform incorporates regional regulatory requirements and language considerations. Global tools often struggle with local context, naming conventions and compliance nuances — we are designed specifically with these realities in mind,” he said.
FOCAL is currently used by a range of organizations, including traditional banks, digital banks, fintech firms, electronic money institutions, payment companies, and other financial service providers. Alyousef said results from live deployments have been significant, with some large EMI clients reporting fraud reductions of up to 90 percent.
“Clients benefit not only from reduced fraud losses but also from an improved customer experience, as the system minimizes unnecessary friction and false rejections,” he said. “Beyond financial services, we also work with organizations in e-commerce and telecommunications.”
Looking ahead, Alyousef said the company sees agentic AI as a key direction for the future of financial crime prevention, both in the region and globally. Mozn, he added, is investing heavily in this area to enhance investigative workflows and operational efficiency, building on the capabilities of its Financial Crime Intelligence layer.
“We are pioneers in introducing agentic AI for financial crime investigation and rule-building. Our roadmap increasingly emphasizes automation, advanced machine learning and AI-assisted workflows to improve investigator productivity and reduce false positives.”
As AI tools become more widely available, Alyousef warned that the risk of misuse by criminals is also increasing, raising the bar for defensive technologies.
“Our goal is to stay ahead of that curve and to contribute meaningfully to positioning Saudi Arabia and the region as globally competitive leaders in AI,” he said.
