The attainment and rebrand of TDS Global’s Communications Compliance Practice from Kerv looks to serve the UK’s Tier 1 financial sector and help organisations migrate to cloud services.
Kerv, the next-generation customer-first cloud and Digital Transformation services provider, has announced the acquisition of the Communications Compliance Practice business of TDS Global Holdings to significantly enhance its capabilities in FCA regulated compliance services.
The acquisition will take the total Kerv business to over £60 million turnover and more than 500 staff and create the leading compliance technology practice serving the UK’s Tier 1 banking and financial services sector.
The rebranded Kerv Practice provides mission-critical communications compliance services to major global financial services organisations. This includes 50% of the Tier 1 UK banks with 140,000 channels of compliance recording and more than 3 billion captured calls under management globally.
The business employs 40 staff based in Europe, Asia and North America with headquarters in London and a 24-hour global service operations centre in Cardiff. With annual turnover exceeding £10 million, the practice is continuing to win new customers at pace, achieving a growth rate of 20% in the last financial year and forecasting to exceed that growth in the current period.
The acquisition will strengthen Kerv’s existing proposition and capabilities around all aspects of compliance. The existing leadership of the practice, including CEO Brad Gorton and Head of Strategy, Paul Wilson, will join Kerv in senior roles working closely alongside the management team at Kerv Collaborate, which already has a strong presence in the banking and financial services market.
In addition, Kerv plans to retain all staff in the practice and will continue to invest in the business to build on its growth trajectory and global presence.
The practice brings key core technology capabilities to Kerv and is a top-tier partner for the leading global compliance vendors including Verint (winning both European Compliance Partner of the Year and Deal of the Year awards) and NICE.
The practice enables its clients to ensure and assure compliance across all channels, including mobile, Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Symphony together with social media and messaging platforms, all delivered as a cloud-managed service.
“Across all Kerv’s practices we have a strong focus on helping our customers transform their business by migrating to and then transforming in the cloud. As we approach our second anniversary, this acquisition is another significant milestone in the development of the group,” said Kerv Executive Chair, Alastair Mills.
“With the compliance world relatively slow to migrate to the cloud compared to other sectors, this is a transformation that is now happening at pace and Kerv is well placed to capitalise on this significant market trend.”
Managing Director of the new Kerv Practice, Brad Gorton, said: “We’re so excited to be joining the team at Kerv for the next stage of our journey. The opportunity to build on our global cloud capabilities, to extend our digital services and to accelerate investment in our automation, monitoring and proprietary technology by leveraging Kerv’s capabilities is fantastic for us and our customers.
“Bringing the rest of the Kerv group’s portfolio to our customers and providing our compliance expertise to the Kerv client base will help us accelerate our own growth even further.”