It said rising regulatory costs meant the business was “increasingly becoming sub-scale”, it said, adding the move supports its strategy to focus on banking and general insurance.
The Co-op also announced it has entered into exclusive talks with Royal London to sell its life insurance subsidiary.
A sale would include the £15bn of assets in its Long Term Business Fund and The Co-operative Asset Management (TCAM) which manages it.
Today’s announcement follows a strategic review of Co-op’s life and savings business.
Despite its exit from offering financial advice directly, CFS has signed a seven-year distribution partnership with Axa, which will provide in-branch financial advice to the Co-op’s five million retail banking customers.
As a result, 82 existing Co-operative branch-based advisory roles will be transferred to Axa.
Neville Richardson, chief executive at CFS, said: “We were faced with rising regulatory costs in a business which was increasingly becoming sub-scale.
“This move supports our strategy to focus our specific attention on our banking and general insurance areas, where we have a growing and strongly differentiated competitive position.”
In September, Ashcourt Rowan Financial Planning purchased Co-op’s IFA business.
CFS’ general insurance business was outside the scope of the strategic review.
