Buyer guideCompared with CCL Academy
Shog Corporate Training and CCL Academy
CCL Academy is a UK compliance-training firm with a Dubai office and roughly three decades in financial services. It publishes Arabic eLearning across anti-money laundering, trade-based money laundering, fraud, cybercrime, data protection and ESG, and it runs the DFSA induction and CPD programmes for DIFC firms. For a DIFC-regulated financial institution it is a serious and obvious choice.
This page is about where the two differ, which is narrower than either marketing site suggests. Both assess, both certificate, both report. The differences that matter to a UAE buyer are how the Arabic was made, what the certificate carries about the person who earned it, where the resulting files are stored, and whether the catalogue reaches past compliance into management and workplace subjects.
Buyer guide
- Reviewed
- 7 September 2026
- Sources
- 9
- Reading time
- 9 min
- Review cycle
- 90 days
The short version
If you are a DIFC-regulated firm and your requirement is the DFSA induction or the annual CPD programme for your Senior Executive Officer, Compliance Officer or MLRO, buy CCL. We do not offer those programmes and are not a substitute for them.
If your requirement is training a whole workforce in Arabic and holding evidence an inspector can test, the difference is the Arabic and the evidence, not the subject list. CCL describes its Arabic modules as translations of English originals. Ours are authored as separate versions, each with its own modules and assessment, and the version taken is named on the certificate.
Who each option suits
When we are the better fit
- Your workforce is mostly Arabic-first and you want the Arabic to be the primary text rather than a translation of an English one.
- You need one evidence trail across compliance, management and workplace subjects, rather than a compliance library plus a separate leadership provider.
- You want the certificate to say who sat the course, evidenced by a photograph taken at completion or a signed declaration, rather than by whichever login was used.
- You would rather your certificates, identity photographs and signed declarations sat in your own Microsoft or Google storage than in a vendor's.
- You are training two hundred staff on a budget that currently buys one accredited certificate for the compliance officer.
When CCL Academy is the better fit
- You need the DFSA Regulatory and Compliance Induction Programme or the DFSA SEO and Compliance Officer CPD Programme. These are CCL's and are not something we replicate.
- You want thirty years of financial-services specialisation, including trade-based money laundering and sanctions depth aimed at banks and DIFC firms.
- You already run your own learning platform and want SCORM modules to deploy into it, which CCL supplies and we do not.
- Your compliance officer needs a recognised individual qualification with a named awarding body behind it rather than an employer-issued completion record.
Side by side
Each row cites the material it came from. Where a vendor does not publish something we record that it is not published, rather than asserting the capability is absent.
Arabic content
Shog Corporate Training
Each course is authored twice, in Arabic and in English, as two active versions with their own modules and assessment.
Assessment and reporting
Shog Corporate Training
A score against a stated pass mark, attempt count and retry limit, with attendance and assessment reports and a full data export.
DFSA programmes
Shog Corporate Training
Not offered.
CCL Academy
DFSA Regulatory and Compliance Induction Programme, and the DFSA SEO and Compliance Officer CPD Programme 2026 at AED 5,000.
[4]
Bracketed numbers refer to the sources listed at the end of this guide.
Translated Arabic and authored Arabic are not the same product
Almost every compliance vendor selling into the UAE reaches Arabic the same way: write the course in English, then translate it. CCL is unusually honest about this, describing its Arabic modules as translations on the page that sells them.
Translation is fine for a definition and poor for an example. The scenarios that make compliance training land are local: the customer who wants to pay a deposit in cash, the beneficial owner two companies back, the supervisor who signs the permit without reading it. Those examples have to be written in the language the learner thinks in, not carried across from a British original.
It also matters evidentially. Cabinet Resolution No. 1 of 2022 requires safety instructions to be given in Arabic and in another language the worker understands. A translated deck satisfies the letter of that. A course authored in Arabic, with its own assessment, named on the certificate as the version taken, is what you would rather hand an inspector.
What an inspection actually asks for
Cabinet Resolution No. 134 of 2025, the executive regulations of the current UAE anti-money-laundering law, makes developing, implementing and documenting ongoing training a personal duty of the appointed compliance officer. It does not set a frequency, and no onshore instrument does.
For workplace safety the obligation is sharper than most buyers realise. Administrative Decision No. 19 of 2023 requires the occupational safety record to include training, the number of employees who took part, and the resources available for it, and says the record should be available for inspection on request.
Both of those are record duties as much as training duties. That is the whole design of this product: the certificate carries who sat it, what was in it, the score against the stated pass mark and the date, and the reports export as documents you can hand over.
Where CCL is genuinely stronger
CCL owns the DFSA relationship commercially. If your Senior Executive Officer, Compliance Officer or MLRO needs the induction programme or the annual CPD hours, that is CCL's programme and not ours, and no amount of evidence architecture substitutes for it.
Their financial-services depth is also real: three decades of it, including trade-based money laundering and sanctions material aimed at banks. A DIFC-regulated institution with a specialist requirement should shortlist them regardless of what this page says.
And if you already run a learning platform, CCL supplies SCORM modules that drop into it. We do not sell content into someone else's platform; the evidence architecture is the product, and it does not survive being exported as a SCORM package.
Questions worth asking both of us
Ask to see a completed certificate, not a sample. Ask what it says about who sat the course, and how that was established.
Ask whether the Arabic was authored or translated, and ask to see the Arabic assessment rather than the Arabic slides.
Ask what happens to your evidence files if you stop paying, and get the answer in the contract rather than in a sales call.
Ask which regulation the vendor believes obliges you to train, and check the citation. A vendor still citing Federal Decree-Law 20 of 2018 for UAE anti-money-laundering duties is working from a law repealed in October 2025.
Evaluation checklist
Run the same script against both vendors and any third you shortlist. Score what you are shown, not what you are told.
- Ask for a real completed certificate and check what identifies the person who earned it.
- Ask whether the certificate names the course version taken, and what happens to it when the course is revised.
- Sit the Arabic assessment yourself, or have an Arabic-first colleague do it, and judge whether it reads as translated.
- Confirm the pass mark, the attempt limit and whether both appear on the record.
- Test third-party verification from a private browser window with no account.
- Ask where certificates, identity evidence and exports are stored, and in which country.
- Ask what you receive on termination, in what format, and how long you have to collect it.
- Ask for the attendance and assessment reports as files, not as screenshots of a dashboard.
- Check whether expiry and renewal reminders exist, and who receives them.
- Price the same headcount for the same year, including every person you must train, not only the compliance officer.
- Ask who authored each course and what their standing is in the subject.
- Ask which UAE instrument the vendor says obliges you to train, and verify the citation is current.
Questions
Is CCL Academy a direct competitor?
For Arabic compliance eLearning sold to UAE employers, yes, and it is the closest one. For the DFSA induction and CPD programmes, no: those are CCL's and we do not offer an equivalent.
Does CCL Academy offer Arabic courses?
Yes. It publishes Arabic eLearning across anti-money laundering, trade-based money laundering, fraud, cybercrime, data protection and ESG. Its own page describes these as Arabic translations, which is the distinction this comparison turns on.
Does UAE law require annual refresher training?
Not onshore. Cabinet Resolution No. 134 of 2025 requires ongoing training programmes and makes documenting them a duty of the compliance officer, but sets no frequency. An express annual duty exists in ADGM and in the Central Bank's standards for exchange houses. Anyone telling you the UAE mandates annual refreshers everywhere is overstating it.
How long must training records be kept in the UAE?
There is no express onshore retention period for training records specifically. The five-year rule in the anti-money-laundering regulations covers transaction and customer due diligence records. ADGM sets six years for training records expressly, and Abu Dhabi's occupational safety framework sets five years for safety records.
Can a third party verify one of your certificates?
Yes, by certificate number or QR code, with no account. This is worth having but it is not unusual: open-source and credentialing platforms have offered public verification for years. What is unusual is what the certificate carries alongside the number.
Do you replace an existing learning platform?
For the courses you run with us, yes. We do not sell content to load into a platform you already own, which is something CCL does and we deliberately do not, because the evidence record is the product and it does not survive export.
What happens to our evidence if we leave?
If you connected your own Microsoft or Google storage, the certificates, identity photographs and signed declarations are already in your possession and are unaffected. Otherwise you receive a full export within thirty days of termination.
Continue your evaluation
Shortlist made? Ask each vendor for one completed certificate and the reports behind it.
Sources and methodology
We reviewed the official public pages listed below on the stated date. Product scope, contracts and regulatory interpretations can change; verify shortlisted capabilities directly with each vendor.
- CCL Academy — compliance training · CCL Academy(2026-09-07)
- Arabic translations — eLearning · CCL Academy(2026-09-07)
- Anti-Money Laundering eLearning · CCL Academy(2026-09-07)
- DFSA SEO & Compliance Officer CPD Programme 2026 · CCL Academy(2026-09-07)
- Course catalogue · Shog Corporate Training(2026-09-07)
- Verify a certificate · Shog Corporate Training(2026-09-07)
- Cabinet Resolution No. 134 of 2025, executive regulations of Federal Decree-Law No. 10 of 2025 · Central Bank of the UAE Rulebook(2026-09-07)
- Cabinet Resolution No. 1 of 2022 implementing Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021 · UAE Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation(2026-09-07)
- Administrative Decision No. 19 of 2023 on occupational safety and health · UAE Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation(2026-09-07)
CCL Academy is a trademark of its respective owner. Shog Corporate Training is not affiliated with or endorsed by CCL Academy. This page is a factual buyer guide based on public materials, and states where a capability is simply not published.