Société Générale Group is to become the first company to offer an offshore life assurance product to retail investors across Europe.

It has put several million pounds behind a specially created Dublin-based subsidiary, Inora Life, which will offer the offshore life assurance bond to the public through IFAs (independent financial advisers). The first sales will be targeted at the UK, with Spain, Italy, France, Germany and the Benelux countries following by the end of the second quarter.