DUBAI: On the eve of Britain’s upcoming EU referendum vote, financial planning firm Guardian Wealth Management (GWM) has outlined how expatriates in the Middle East can safeguard their investments regardless of the outcome.
With polls indicating that Thursday’s vote will be a close call, uncertainty has hit the value of Britain’s equity, property and currency markets, all potentially impacting expatriates with investments in the UK.
GWM’s senior executives have outlined a range of investment tactics to follow in the event of both stay or leave votes, with forward planning key to a positive financial outcome.
“This is one of the closest votes in the UK’s history and that has left much uncertainty when it comes to investments and finances,” said Hamzah Shalchi, regional manager, Guardian Wealth Management.
“Investors may be unsure of exactly how their finances will be affected, but the key is to prepare either way so people are not left short after the vote.”
Vote Leave
Although UK investments will feel the heat in both results, it will be more so in the event of an exit and financials will be at the forefront as their regulation at present is highly dependent on EU law, says GWM.
The company warns that if the outcome of the referendum is Vote Leave then sterling selloff on the stock market is highly likely, with the pound potentially losing a third of its value.
Advice: GWM advises expatriates with investments heavily weighted to UK stocks to look at moving into cash to minimize potential losses. Monthly savers with long-term investment plans will unlikely be affected so they should carry on with what they are already doing. In fact, Vote Leave may even be beneficial because they will get cheaper units in the ensuing months, this creates dollar cost averaging.
Vote Remain
Although staying within the EU will surely increase confidence among expatriate investors, there will likely be some trade and trust issues within Europe, according to GWM.
Advice: GWM advises people to implement a solid strategy to ensure they have a well diversified portfolio. Portfolios with portions allocated to low risk assets have proven to weather even the most market impacting events, as well as equities that deliver a greater tendency for higher returns over the long term.
Another positive is that if the UK chooses to stay in it will outperform Europe in the markets due to underperformance over the past year; therefore a Vote Remain result is a great time to invest in UK shares.
Investment tips for all expatriates regardless of the vote: Do not invest anything over the next four days, sit on your cash and wait for the results; people who have already invested should be locking in their profits to make sure they are no longer exposed to risks; be ready to make decisions quickly and communicate more than normal with your IFA or broker; and do not speculate in the currency market for the next two weeks as it is too risky and you can easily be caught on the wrong side.
Shalchi concludes: “No one can really say which way things will go in the vote on June 23; however, the most important advice expatriates can take on board is to keep informed and keep on top of their investments, rather than burying their head in the sand and seeing the financial impact in months or years to come.”
How expats can safeguard their investments in uncertain times
How expats can safeguard their investments in uncertain times
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.
