Support services provider The Verve Group has launched a compliance “switching service” which it said aims to make changing providers easy.

The firm said it had been encouraged to launch the new service by the ease of changing banks or moving utility providers.

Cathi Harrison, founder and CEO, said: “In recent years it’s become super easy for people to switch banks or utilities. And within finance, we’ve seen a concerted effort to make it easier for clients to switch pensions.

“But it’s difficult for firms to change providers. Compliance is the lynchpin of success for advice firms, but there’s a structural blockage to making a switch. So we’re changing it. A firm should be able to easily switch to any provider they want.”

She claimed the product was the finance industry’s first compliance switching service.

The new offering is the latest version of Verve’s evolving compliance service, originally launched in 2019 to help financial advisers meet regulations, manage risks, and maintain professional integrity by providing guidance, monitoring and support.

It said that when firms switch to Verve for compliance, it handles everything: moving data, resetting policies, updating the audit - absorbing the overall time and cost of undertaking the switch. For clients, that means no break in service and not paying twice during service overlap, the company said.

The switching service will be available through Verve’s in-house technology platform Dextera, which already gives firms control over their compliance framework and team training with a dashboard.

Verve has been operating for 16 years since originally launching as a paraplanning business in 2009. It now offers a range of services to advisers, from websites to compliance to paraplanning.