AXA completes strategic alliance with Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banks

AXA Life has completed the agreement announced in November 2008 to form a strategic partnership with Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banks.

The agreement sees AXA take over the responsibility for providing new investment and protection products to Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banks' 2.3 million retail banking customers across the UK.

The arrangement will provide improved choice and enhanced service for Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banks' retail customers - AXA's investment in the business and in its employees will leverage greater economies of scale. Similarly, the deal will significantly strengthen AXA's distribution model.

A key strength of the agreement lies in the enlargement of Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banks' financial planning sales team and managers who will have access to Elevate, AXA's wrap platform, to manage clients' investments, increasing the number of individual client accounts on the platform.

AXA's Wealth and Protection businesses will also benefit from an enhanced financial distribution service and an opportunity to provide their wide choice of wealth management and protection products to the banks' retail customers.

AXA's new multi-manager investment company will benefit from the partnership, with a transfer of funds under management from MLC to Architas Multi-Manager, scheduled for the summer of 2009.

Simon Philp, Director of Bancassurance, AXA Life, said: "AXA is delighted not only to have won this deal but to have delivered it to plan. While this alliance increases the size of our business overall, it also shows that the breadth of our Bancassurance offering is ideally positioned in the marketplace."