The investment is part of a push to both increase productivity and cut outsourcing costs by the Edinburgh-headquartered business, which said it was now positioned "for the future" in the transactional mail printing space.

The kit spend by Standard Life consists of two Océ VarioStream 9230s, four Océ VarioPrint 5115s, three Océ VarioPrint 2110s and four Océ CS665 systems.

The machines replace equipment from previous supplier Xerox.

Standard Life said it would be using the new presses to produce a range of documents, including transactional statements, marketing literature and other collateral in volumes of up to 10m images a month.

According to Vinny Wor­nin, document production manager at Standard Life, the increased production capabilities have allowed the company to bring more work back in-house.

He said: "One of our strategic objectives is to take operational excellence on to a new level and to get it right first time.

"When we put our print contract out to tender, we asked the vendors to review our operations, be innovative and come back with what they thought was the best solution going forward."

Steve Wilson, director of production printing at Océ UK, said: "From our own experiences, we know that these printing and software systems will provide added value, which will include additional marketing and business opportunities for Standard Life."

Earlier this year, Standard Life became one of the first companies to sign up for Sustainable Mail, the discount scheme for direct mailers offered by the Royal Mail.