AMMAN: The Saudi Fund for Development (SFD) has signed a financing agreement with the National Bank of Iraq (NBI) to provide $10 million in credit facilities to Iraqi investors wanting to import products and services from Saudi companies.
The move aims to contribute to strengthening trade relations between the two countries, a statement issued by Saudi Press Agency said.
Under the agreement, SFD will grant NBI, a subsidiary of Capital Bank Group, a revolving financing line to import various goods and services of Saudi origin for the bank’s importing company clients, with a 100 percent financing rate of its value.
The agreement was signed in Jordan’s capital Amman by SFD CEO Sultan Abdulrahman Al-Marshad and Bassem Al-Salem, chairman of the board of directors of Capital Bank Group.
It will grant a payment period of up to 36 months depending on the type of imports and the nature of the operation.
The agreement “reflects the two countries’ desire to enhance cooperation between them in various fields, and is part of what was allocated by the Saudi government to support reconstruction and development projects in Iraq, exceeding $1.5 billion,” said Al-Marshad.
He added that supporting stability in countries seeking to achieve sustainable economic and social development is one of the fund’s most important priorities, and through this agreement, Saudi Arabia seeks to enhance efforts to achieve joint prosperity.
The agreement is in line with the Kingdom’s efforts to diversify sources of national income and increase the volume of non-oil exports of Saudi goods and services, as it will open new markets for Saudi producers and contribute to stimulating Iraq’s commercial and financial sectors, he said.
Al-Salem praised SFD for its efforts to support and finance development projects in Iraq and stimulate bilateral trade relations.
“The fund’s role reflects the Kingdom’s historical orientations and its continuous support of joint Arab action, and contributes to achieving Arab economic integration,” he said.
Al-Salem added that the agreement will contribute to increasing trade between the two countries by providing NBI with credit facilities for importers to import high-quality Saudi goods and services at competitive prices to the Iraqi market. The agreement will also activate transport operations between the two countries.
Saudi Fund for Development signs $10m deal with National Bank of Iraq
https://arab.news/46vje
Saudi Fund for Development signs $10m deal with National Bank of Iraq
- The agreement will grant a payment period of up to 36 months depending on the type of imports
- It is in line with the Kingdom’s efforts to diversify sources of national income and increase the volume of non-oil exports
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.
