LIFETIME, Bank of Ireland's life insurance unit, is to cut 10 per cent of its workforce in a major restructuring of the company of Lifetime's 300 employees will be leaving through a voluntary scheme being introduced to cut costs at the life office.

Mr Ruari O'Floinn, managing director, said the company has completed an overhaul and will become more service oriented. He hopes to have doubled the customer base of 110,000 policies sold within five years.

He also hopes to have more than 10 per cent market share over the same period. Lifetime has an 8 per cent market share in regular savings, putting it in third place, but its share in the single premium market has slipped to fifth or sixth.

Lifetime has also introduced a new regular savings product linked to the stock market and will be introducing a new personal pensions plan at the beginning of the summer.

With both products the old front end load charges are gone and a monthly premium charge and annual fund charge have been introduced.

Another new regular savings product is being introduced to the Irish market by Fidelity Investments, one of the world's largest international fund managers, through its main Irish distributor, the Taylor Investment Group.

The Fidelity Global Savings Plan allows investments of as little as £50 per month into a choice of 24 equity funds concentrating on 18 countries.