SEOUL: South Korean policymakers joined the global chorus of virtual-coin critics on Thursday, saying Seoul is considering shutting down domestic virtual currency exchanges as the new breed of market exposes users to speculative frenzy and crime.
The country’s tough stance comes as policymakers from the United States to Germany struggle to come up with stricter regulation against money laundering and other crimes.
Responding to questions in parliament, South Korea’s chief of the Financial Services Commission said: “(The government) is considering both shutting down all local virtual currency exchanges or just the ones who have been violating the law.”
Separately, Bank of Korea Governor Lee Ju-yeol told a news conference that “cryptocurrency is not a legal currency and is not being used as such as of now.”
Regulators around the world are still debating how to address risks posed by cryptocurrencies, as bitcoin, the world’s most popular virtual currency, soared more than 1,700 percent last year.
Prices have plummeted since South Korea announced last week it may ban domestic cryptocurrency exchanges. On Wednesday, bitcoin slid 18 percent.
According to Bithumb, South Korea’s second-largest virtual currency exchange, the nation’s bitcoin trading price stood at 15,697,000 won ($14,690.69) as of 0314 GMT on Thursday.
On the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange, bitcoin was traded at $11,750.
Hong Nam-ki, minister of the office for government policy co-ordination, said that opinions on cryptocurrency trading are sharply divided within the government, but vowed to make a decision on regulations during Thursday’s parliamentary session.
South Korea’s justice minister said last week the ministry was preparing a bill to ban cryptocurrency trading, which sent bitcoin prices sharply lower and threw the market into turmoil.
The shift toward tighter regulation sparked strong reaction from many South Koreans, thousands of whom signed a petition on the website of the presidential Blue House to stop a ban on cryptocurrency trading.
On Thursday, the BOK governor said the central bank had begun looking into the market’s impact on the economy.
“We have started looking at virtual currency from a long-term standpoint, as central banks could start issuing digital currencies in the future. This sort of research has begun at the Bank of International Settlements and we are part of that research.”
South Korea considers shutting down domestic cryptocurrency exchanges
South Korea considers shutting down domestic cryptocurrency exchanges
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.
