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London - British life insurer Standard Life is to cut 139 jobs as part of a previously announced plan to merge its domestic business with that in the rest of Europe.
Standard Life, Britain's fifth-biggest insurer, has been cutting costs and reorganising to prepare for regulatory changes in Britain that will ban commission payments to brokers and automatically enrol workers into company retirement schemes, boosting pension saving.
In August, the 187-year old insurer said it would bring its British, Irish and German businesses under one roof to counterbalance its newly created emerging markets unit, focusing on China, Hong Kong and India.
"Our current model and structure has to change to meet the changing demands of this new world where customers will want to interact in different ways for different products," said Paul Matthews, head of Standard Life's UK and Europe arm.
Standard Life shares were down 0.2% at 12:55 GMT, narrowly underperforming a flat FTSE 100 share index.
The stock has risen 50% since the start of the year, outpacing a 28% rise in the FTSE life insurance index .
