The contract will see the business continue to transform the brand’s inbound and outbound customer communications, in line with Studio Retail’s digital transformation strategy.

Adare SEC produces around one million mail packs per month for the retail business, including statements, marketing offers, and regulatory guidance – information that changes from month-to-month.

To facilitate and increase the speed of these changes in artwork and messaging, Studio Retail uses Adare SEC’s SmartEdit capability, which enables its employees to edit, review and approve any changes to pre-existing templates, significantly reducing the cost and time of document change.

Under a phased digital transformation programme, Adare SEC is working with Studio Retail to initially transform around 10% of its statement pack volume into e-statements over the coming months.

The company said this would drive down costs and provide Studio Retail’s customers with communications via their channel of choice.

Adare SEC chief executive Rachael Nevins said: “Since the beginning of our partnership with Studio Retail in 2017 we’ve been working to optimise quality and efficiency across the whole communication production process.

“We are excited to continue the next phase of the partnership, guiding Studio Retail’s digital transformation and enabling the business to deliver a more flexible customer experience.”

Studio Retail financial services director David Twigg added: “Since working with Adare SEC we’ve achieved greater cost and process efficiencies, which have enabled the reallocation of staff time and resource into our core business activities.

“Adare SEC has been an important partner for us in our digital transformation journey which is well underway and developing successfully. E-statement provision will simply offer our customers greater choice and convenience and will help us to further build our customer experience.”

Adare SEC also provides Studio Retail with hybrid mail capability via its PrintMe service, as well as its Inbound offering, which manages returned mail, scanning documents such as customer credit agreements and delivering a secure storage and retrieval service.

£71.4m-turnover Adare SEC employs around 400 staff across its secure facilities in Huddersfield, Redditch and Nottingham, producing around 750 million critical customer communications per annum.

In December the business continued its multi-million pound investment drive with the installation of a Ricoh Pro VC70000 high speed inkjet printer at its Huddersfield facility.

This followed its £3m investment last year in new kit and systems across its operations in Huddersfield and Nottingham, including three Epic inserting lines from Bluecrest and six Neopost folder-inserters.

Adare SEC was spun off as part of a two-way split of the former Adare Group in 2017, with print management wing Adare International operating as a separate entity.

Both Adare SEC and Adare International are owned by private equity house Endless.