Clever Nelly: Financial Crime Benefit Summary

Clever Nelly: Financial Crime Benefit Summary

Discover how Clever Nelly simplifies MLRO oversight and auditability. Improve efficacy, assurance, and employee adherence with compliance training that takes under 1.5 minutes a day.Contents

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Financial Crime Controls: Challenges

In a poll of 493 senior financial services professionals in February 2026, our engagement with firms indicated that the hardest areas to evidence in practice are:

Ensuring controls genuinely prevent financial crime.
Identifying whether controls effectively stop bad actors.
Ensuring that Management Information (MI) drives real action.

Generating data remains a primary pain point for firms. In July 2025, we polled 422 senior financial services professionals; results indicated that "poor data quality and information sharing" was considered the biggest compliance blind spot.

When asked why firms struggle to meet their financial crime obligations, this factor was the top answer for 40% of participants, closely followed by the challenge of "leveraging new technologies to identify risks" (35%).

Other key reasons cited for compliance struggles included:

Reliance on manual processes (48%)
The increasing complexity of threats (43%)
Staff skills gaps (41%)
Budget constraints (37%)
A complacent risk culture (33%)

How Clever Nelly Can Help

In this short benefit summary document, we explain the benefits of Clever Nelly and our continual assessment model in the context of the FCA’s "poor practice" examples.

You will also hear from John Clarke, MLRO at Fidelity International UK, discussing how the data provided by Clever Nelly makes his responsibilities easier, improves oversight, and makes engaging with staff simpler and more effective.

Financial Crime: Benefit summary

FCA ‘POOR PRACTICE’ EXAMPLES		CLEVER NELLY BENEFITS
“There is little evidence of senior staff involvement and challenge and practice. A firm concentrates on narrow compliance with minimum regulatory standards and has little engagement with the issues.”		Continual assessment of financial crime competence demonstrates a clear move away from narrow / tick-box approaches to employee compliance.
“There is no meaningful record or evidence of senior management considering financial crime risks.”		Firms receive daily, real-time, objective Management Information showing where competence-related financial crime risks are manifesting within their organisation.
“A firm has no strategy for self-improvement on financial crime and issues are dealt with on a purely reactive basis.”		Clever Nelly automatically assesses and repairs individual competence gaps in the flow of work, proactively supporting a strategy of self-improvement.
“The firm makes no effort to understand or address gaps in its financial crime defences.”		Clever Nelly provides granular, best-in-class reporting and evidence of staff competence in relation to their financial crime knowledge.
“MI does not help senior management to understand the financial crime risks in which their firm is exposed.”		The Management Information provides firms with a forward-facing risk radar, showing where competence / confidence is sub-optimal.
“The firm fails to check whether policies and procedures are applied consistently and effectively.”		Continual assessment enables firms to assess and improve employee behaviours associated with adherence to policies and procedures.
“The firm fails to identify training needs.”		Clever Nelly continually assesses individual employee training needs, repairing knowledge gaps in the flow of work, whilst highlighting where immediate intervention is required.
“New staff in customer-facing positions do not receive financial crime training tailored to their role before being able to interact with customers.”		Clever Nelly typically improves speed-to-competence for new hires by 30% using continual assessment; completely personalising the learning experience for each individual.

What our customers say…

The value I receive as the UK MLRO is that I am not only physically able to demonstrate the provision and effectiveness of anti-money laundering training but also evidence my own oversight of the firm’s compliance with its requirements in respect of employee training.

John Clarke

Money Laundering Reporting Officer at Fidelity International UK

John Clarke explains how Clever Nelly data makes his responsibilities easier, enabling the firm to track key trends.

Clever Nelly impact at Fidelity International UK

95,500+

Personalised interventions conducted.

89.5%

Average employee compliance score.

14%

Average competency improvement in six months.

93%

Average employee engagement score.

Benefit recap

Improve Oversight:

MLRO regulatory responsibilities made easier.

Improve Auditability:

Makes evidencing training effectiveness easier.

Improve Efficacy:

Makes compliance training easier and more effective.

Improve Assurance:

Senior management see huge value.

Improve Adherence:

Takes less than 1.5 minutes per day for employees to engage with.

John Clarke explains how Clever Nelly makes providing compliance training easier and more effective.

Ready to learn more?

You can have the best designed AML controls possible but if staff do not understand why they are doing something, the effectiveness of such controls will be hugely impacted. My direct involvement with Clever Nelly has ensured senior management buy-in and meant that questions are fit for purpose. Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive with employees preferring the short daily interactions over having to sit in a classroom training session for an hour or so; the output from which is extremely difficult to measure from an effectiveness standpoint.

John Clarke

Money Laundering Reporting Officer at Fidelity International UK

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