The insurance Goliath Standard Life has declared to slash 500 jobs in next 15 months. The Edinburgh pedestal firm is phasing out 600 existing jobs and it has also decided to craft 100 new-fangled posts athwart the business, so in complete it is a loss of 500 jobs.

The group was anticipating that the Edinburgh might lose 480 jobs due to the remnants that swayed in from the UK regional and abroad operations.

Standard Life has augmented half-year profit in row with predictions as a huge boost in net inflows enhancing assets management by 5% since the ending of 2009 to £179.1bn.

The UK's fourth- biggest insurer accounted IFRS operating profit before tax from ongoing operations mount by 10% to £182m during the first half of 2010 and European Embedded Value profit mounted by 11% to £364m.

Following the publication of 'misleading' marketing literature on the security of one of its investment funds, Standard Life, a huge presence amongst pension providers, have been fined £2.45 million by the Financial Services Authority (FSA).

On Wednesday, British insurer Standard Life declared that a deal with Bank of China is in final stage, in order to obtain a majority stake in its Chinese joint venture, Heng An Standard Life.

The approval of the deal, which would give Standard Life a smaller stake in a larger business, will see strengthening of its distribution reach, along with converting the venture into a domestic player. The venture as of now is 50-50 venture between Standard Life and Teda International.