Aegon UK to make £80m annualised cuts

This just shouts at more jobs going offshore and UK jobs being squeezed.

Aegon, like other life offices need to be competative, but this is a classic catch 22. If jobs go in the UK, which they will, then whom are the advisors going to get their business from.

Taking from a much smaller pool, that is the answer?

Another impact of RDR i'm afraid. Insurance companies will no longer be able to use commission and increased allocation to buy business. All this will unfortunately lead to job losses in large insurers, IFA's and IFA support staff. It seems that costs to the consumer are paramount and no-one is allowed to make money, but it's not just our industry, it's the same in telecoms. Just when somebody looks like it's going to make a profit the EU say the call charges are unfair and have to be reduced (even when the consumers agreed to the contract charges when they bought the phone in the first place). End result - great deals for consumers, but wait a minute, no-one has a job to afford these cheaper contracts - free market economy - I think not!

Just another addition to the horrendous intention to move to basing advice remuneration to fees alone.

How many thousands and thousands of people will be deprived of advice because of this?

I believe that the Tories, who stood for change, have reappointed this idiot back into positions of power and control.

The Tories even said that the FSA had made disasterous mistakes - so what are they doing reappointing the failure who presided over the disaster to another similar post.

Barking.

At a time when the State will be curtailing many welfare benefits - self provision should be encouraged, however Life insurers business models will not work in the post RDR environment.

Protection in all its forms has to be sold, and there will be no-one post 2012 to do it. Fee earning IFAs won`t, the direct salesforces have gone, and banks will only pick up contingent sales.

The law of unintended consequences applies with fewer weaker providers and advisers, and the public disadvantaged once again, under the guise of consumer protection.

International companies can trade anywhere - you just have to see Prudential, Zurich and AVIVAs business plans - they will be servicing policyholders in Asia, administered by local staff, with predominantly local shareholders.

"Aegon will be reallocating capital to the emerging markets of central and eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America."

For the same reasons as The Pru and others want to or have done.

There are actions and there are consequences:

Whether we like or not, the UK's economy has for many years relied heavily on the financial services sector as its mainstay, with the obvious result that many, many jobs are reliant upon it and consequently, the spending power of a sizeable cross section of the county’s employees.

It is astonishing therefore, that during a period of economic crisis, with our manufacturing industries having been decimated over the years and with banks only willing to lend to those who neither need nor want to borrow, we have re-employed the same regulatory mindset that got us into this mess in the first place, to push ahead with it's ludicrous regimes; onward, like the 600 into the abyss, it seems.

As Oscar Wild put it, they know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

It may have escaped the conscious mind of the powers that be in their ivory superannuated towers, that financial products (yes, products) and services actually need to be sold – ooh - there's that dirty word again!

They thought in their ignorance that the reason many people did not have pensions in the UK was because they were too expensive in terms of charges. Whilst it is true they were too expensive, that was not the reason, it was because people could not afford to save. That is why Stakeholder was a flop as a concept in its self - they thought everyone and his dog would wake up on a Sunday morning, leap enthusiastically out of bed and feverishly rush to sort themselves out a pension with their little decision tree - didn't happen. And it didn't happen, because no one could afford to sell it. It is why millions will also opt out of NEST.

Concepts need to be explained and ideas sold (there we go again!) to people, otherwise they do not see the need to prioritise retirement saving over a holiday or Christmas or a new plasma TV.

Whether the FSA likes it or not, whether many of the advisory snob elite out there like it or not, they/we are all salespeople - we sell people our knowledge, concepts, ideas, solutions and (heaven forbid) products.

In order for anyone - no matter what they do - to have a job, somebody, somewhere, SOLD SOMETHING. Think about it.

If this country is to get out of its current mess, it needs to sell not only responsibly, but profitably to the world; no sales, no profit, no profit, no business. Bean counters take note.

Well at least Bang to Rights has grasped the truth.

No point whinging about it - as I have said so many times already UK Life assurance, as the die hards know it, is a busted flush. If they don't have a good life assurance proposition they don't stand a chance in the UK. Bond sales have tanked, endowments are no more, and most won't touch With Profits with a bargepole. Pensions are no longer their exclusive province.

The Pru had the right idea but a lousy execution. Get out of the UK and go where they can still make some money.

Hold on!

The reason that Aegon Scot Eq have to downsize is simply that the business model they have followed for the last 30 or 40 years is bust.

We no longer need expensive Life Assurance based Savings, Investment and Pension contracts. there are now, and have been for some years, better, more efficient and more attractive options.

This is not because of RDR, it's down to market and product evolution, which over the last few years has moved considerably faster than the planning and imagination of Life Office senior management.

The future role for Life Offices is surely going to be very much restricted to the provision of Protection solutions, rather than Savings and Investments.

Wasn't this where we came in all those years ago?

It's barely a year since I assume they spent several million to drop the Scottish Equitable name, now AEGON have their reservations about the value of the business in the future

talk about left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing