ASBERG, Germany: The leaders of Germany and France clashed over plans to monitor Europe's crisis-hit banks yesterday, overshadowing anniversary celebrations of a symbolic step in their post-war reconciliation.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande had gathered at the Baroque palace in Ludwigsburg, southwestern Germany, where Charles de Gaulle gave a watershed speech to German youth in 1962.
But despite affirmations that European unity was the only way out of the debt turmoil lashing the euro, they differed over a key plank of crisis-fighting: Tighter checks on the European banking sector.
"I support a banking union, it is an important measure and we must proceed step-by-step," Hollande told reporters, while stressing that such a framework should be in place "the earlier the better".
Merkel, for her part, said Berlin also backed European oversight of lenders but urged a more cautious approach, saying haste could prove costly.
"For me it is important that quality is ensured. It is pointless to do something very quickly that in the end doesn't work," she said.
"It must be thorough, it must be of good quality and then we'll see how long it takes. We will get our finance ministers to work with each other on it as quickly as possible."
EU leaders agreed the new bank supervision system in June as part of a deal to allow the bloc's rescue funds to lend directly to stricken banks instead of passing aid through countries and so adding to their debt woes.
It is a first step toward a banking union and dovetails with moves toward the deeper economic and political cooperation aimed at taming the debt crisis which has brought the euro zone economy to a standstill.
But the proposal has driven a wedge between Germany and France, the team that sees itself as the engine of European integration.
While France would like to hand the European Central Bank power to supervise all 6,000 euro zone banks from January, Germany would like it to keep an eye just on big banks and is in little hurry.
Merkel and Hollande were celebrating the day 50 years ago when De Gaulle spoke to young Germans, in their own language and without notes, and offered a new beginning in bilateral ties.
Under grey skies, Hollande told an audience of French and German citizens that European unity was the only way out of the euro zone's troubles.
"The only response to the crisis is Europe, it is Europe that will beat the crisis," he said, delivering the speech in French but wrapping it up with a few words in German: "Long live the Franco-German friendship!"
Merkel finished her own speech with a line in French: "Long live Franco-German youth, long live European youth!"
Merkel and Hollande, who have struggled to keep their initial friction to a minimum since the president took office in May, also discussed a mooted merger between EADS and Britain's BAE to create the global aeronautics sector leader.
France and Germany hold major stakes in EADS, while the British state has a golden share in BAE that allows it to veto deals that it perceives not to be in the public interest.
Berlin and Paris have taken a wait-and-see approach, with some officials arguing that the bigger company would be more competitive while others worry the fusion could end up costing good jobs.
The two groups have until Oct. 10 to finalize the project or abandon it, but Merkel and Hollande did not reach a decision at their working lunch in Asberg, the chancellor's spokesman having told reporters not to expect one.
Merkel said: "The discussions were good and in a spirit of friendship, but we do not need to discuss the details in public, particularly when it comes to jobs."
For his part, Hollande said France and Germany would continue to "work closely together" and aimed to meet the Oct. 10 deadline, adding that the key factors in any agreement would include "jobs, industrial strategy, defense activities and the interests of our respective states".
Yesterday's festivities were the latest in a series of events celebrating 50 years of partnership between the wartime foes, now the EU's two biggest economies.
Rift on banking union deepens between Merkel and Hollande
Rift on banking union deepens between Merkel and Hollande
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.
