IRISH Life is making a fresh attempt to capture investors with the introduction of three new savings and investment products.
The new products involve lower charges and carry no penalties for early encashment. Irish Life chief executive for Ireland and Britain, Ms Jean Wood, said the new products were the "most important" ever presented by the company.
The three products announced yesterday, the Performance Investment Plan (PIP), the Performance Equity Plan (PEP) and the Credit Club are the first new regular premium products from the company in more than five years.
Two of the products, the PIP and PEP, form part of a new campaign to challenge those currently sold by banks and other life assurance companies in the Irish market. The new CreditClub is specifically designed to attract younger savers, mainly people between 18 and 29 years of age, according to Ms Wood.
The PIP is a regular savings product, offering lower charges than Irish Life's traditional savings packages.
The PEP offers savers an option to invest up to 55 per cent of their funds in Irish publicly quoted companies and carries a lower tax charge than standard deposit accounts. These products will be sold through Irish Life's independent brokers and the company's own sales force.
The CreditClub, is a more innovative product, which it hopes will be an attractive alternative for young customers who tend to traditionally look to credit unions for savings and loans. These accounts will carry a range of interest rates, rising from 1.5 per cent to 5 per cent on deposits. Regular savers will also qualify for loans, based on a multiple of their savings at preferential rates, according to the company.
Irish Life's aggressive move into the savings market follows acceptance of Labour Relations Commission proposals to allow further negotiations on new work practices at the company for its sales staff.
The company has proposed that the sales staff should work to new structures, operating in teams and on a bonus related rather than a commissions based basis as part of a restructuring of the group.