The enhancement to IRESS' award-winning The Exchange creates the first whole of market electronic new business submission process in the annuity market place. The service goes live with LV= today, to be followed by Aviva in the next month.

This new capability will help reduce the costs of professional advice, improving efficiency for advisers and allowing them to dedicate more time and resource to existing and prospective clients. It will also drive efficiency into the annuity process for LV= and Aviva; speeding up the application process, reducing the time and resource required for data entry and in resolving issues or error correction associated with paper-based systems.

Equally, the service will also improve the process for consumers, enabling quicker pension payments for customers by removing the need for paper flows between the pension provider, the distributor and the annuity provider.

The new service will come at no additional cost for existing clients using The Exchange annuity service.

Dave Miller, Head of Portal, IRESS, said: "As we enter a new world for the at retirement market, it is more important than ever that advisers and providers can operate as efficiently as possible. The annuity product is, and will continue to be, a pillar of retirement planning, so it is crucial that the process of securing a product is as quick, simple and cheap as possible. Technology is pivotal to this. We believe this major enhancement to The Exchange annuity service will provide tangible benefits to providers and advisers as they adapt to the changing landscape.

Philip Brown, Head of Retirement Propositions, LV= said: "Moving to automatic electronic quote submissions is an important step in LV='s drive towards even greater efficiency. We are removing paper forms to speed up the application process and make it easier for advisers and their clients to do business with us. Our ability to transfer funds more quickly will benefit both advisers and their clients as pension payments will be received much faster.