Friends reveals plans for assault on annuity market

The life company's two-part plan is to first build up its internal at retirement offering to stop its current client base from abandoning it for other providers. With a strenthened proposition it hopes it will then be able to compete with rivals once it becomes an OMO provider in 2012. David Still, director of retirement income at Friends Life, said 60,000 people saving with Friends retire every year, but that only a quarter buy a retirement product from Friends. Friends Life will market intensely to existing savings clients with small pots, he said, whose combined assets total £2b...