With last night’s adrenaline from going live abating, we’re reflecting on our We Are Live’ event, and once again we’re delighted by the response to our latest YouTube broadcast.

With almost 100 watching live, and catch-up viewing numbers still rising as we write this, it’s safe to say that the challenge we set ourselves to host another live online event – and this time be bolder than before – has definitely paid off.

We’ve kicked off our Friday fun in the office by toasting (with a cuppa, of course, more bubbles later!) feedback received such as:

And yes we may be (more than) a little biased, but Cathi and the team truly deserve this praise. Not only for having the guts to go live in the first place, but for turning their visions into reality (via lots of hard work) to hit the deadline for announcing all things new at The Verve Group, things to help the future of financial services as a whole.

If you didn’t catch the online event, or perhaps were too carried away in your pub pack (those of you who booked your virtual place early enough to receive these goodies), here’s a summary of the announcements.

Cathi kicked off by providing updates on getting back to work, using what we’ve done as an example to hopefully inspire and encourage others in the industry. She also took the opportunity to show off her latest award (more on that here) but most importantly introduced Apricity‘s Hack. A first for the world of compliance, our team of developers worked for 12 hours yesterday, Hackathon style, to create a new CPD tool. The resulting software is going to make a big difference, particularly to those navigating the new DB requirements.

This naturally led to Kim (Kim Binks, Director of Apricity) giving an update on Apricity, which has certainly not taken its foot off the gas this year. Kim talked about new systems, a new website, client benefits and more, before handing over to The Art of Finance.

Natalie (Natalie Bell, Director of The Art of Finance) launched new courses and exam support, and delved further into the increasing value of online learning. Yes, in June we talked about this, but who knew that this many months on it would have grown in importance?!

Cathi then introduced Jo (Jo Campbell, Director of Para-Sols) who gave a Para-Sols update, including new resources and how to ace your ASRs, and bravely led the team into a Q&A session. See, we told you they had guts!

We then introduced the launch of our brand new, industry-wide, not for profit initiative, We Are Change. We tend to think big here at The Verve Group and we really wanted to find a way to start to help financial services recover from Covid, and also provide support to the wider UK population, creating training and, ultimately, jobs for new people in finance. This aims to attract individuals to finance, start their training, and to build up a pool of people who are actively choosing finance. We really believe that this is an opportunity to build and protect the future of financial services, which will benefit all of us.

Even after ALL of that, we still weren’t done. Cathi and Jo hosted That Mint Podcast’s first-ever live episode, which as you can imagine, was great fun!*

In true Verve style, all of the above was interspersed with informative videos, interactive demos, and more. In fact, to really get a feel of last night’s event, pour yourself a drink and find an hour to watch. You’ll find ‘We Are Live’ below.

*Want to know what happened at the afterparty? You can read the That Mint Podcast blog here.