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13 September 2010

David Nish plans to break Standard Life’s dependency on financial advisers for distribution and explore a direct to consumer channel, according to the Mail on Sunday. Nish, who took over from Sandy Crombie as chief executive nearly a year ago, said Standard Life will continue to support advisers in their move to a fee-based model but wants to explore other avenues including direct to consumer and through employers. ‘I want to bring the outside world into Standard Life,’ Nish told the paper. ‘We’re doing something we’ve never done before which is talk to customers. ‘We don’t serve 70% of the market, those people who don’t use advisers. That’s daft.’ Nish reiterated Standard Life’s move away from insurance by telling the paper: ‘I’m not running an insurance company. We’re a long term savings and investment business. ‘I want to distance ourselves from being viewed as an insurer – of being slow, not consumer-orientated and not understanding the long-term savings market.’ He predicted the next decade will be focused on savings and not insurance. ‘We must construct appropriate savings and investment vehicles to help people accumulate for retirement,’ he said. ‘If we do this, Britain can be a genuinely exciting place for Standard Life to do business.’ Published by CityWire