While eleven other members of the European Union adopt the single currency this year, the UK decides to stick with sterling.          

Friends Provident launches the country's first stakeholder pension in conjunction with The Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union.

A striking new logo emphasises the group's traditional values and the strength and purpose of a modern progressive company.

Friends Provident acquires Edinburgh-based asset management group Ivory & Sime.  The company's asset management group, renamed Friends Ivory & Sime plc, lists on the London Stock Exchange with £31 billion of assets.

The company's position in the group pensions market is strengthened by acquisition of the London & Manchester Group. The industrial branch business of L&M is subsequently sold to Royal Liver in 2000.

The world's first successfully cloned mammal, a sheep named Dolly, is born in Scotland.

Blue Line, a telemarketing service, offers customers a new way to do business.

Nelson Mandela is elected president of South Africa ending the divisive era of apartheid.

£117 million secures the life and unit trust business of NM UK, from NM of Australasia. The acquisition brought with it some £2 billion in funds under management and around 350,000 policies.

The launch of First Call brings direct financial planning within the reach of every customer. The service runs until closure in 2004.

Friends Provident becomes a founder member of Eureko, an alliance of several leading European insurance companies. The new partnership allows the group to expand further in Europe, meeting the demands of increasingly sophisticated investors for international services.

With the launch of Friends Provident International, based in Guernsey, offshore investment requirements can now be met.

The online world becomes accessible at the click of a mouse with Tim Berners-Lee's invention of the World Wide Web.

Friends Provident secures alliances with major European insurance companies and banks. Partners include Kairos in Spain, Permafin and SAI in Italy and Gothaer in Germany.

Europe celebrates as the Berlin Wall is breached after dividing the city for nearly thirty years.

A national network of financial advisers licensed solely to sell Friends Provident products is set up. It continues until changing market conditions see it close in 2006.

Friends Provident products are to be sold in building society branches for the first time as a five-year deal is agreed with Abbey National. The deal is the first of its kind in the industry.

An operational merger with Salisbury-based United Kingdom Provident Institution increases business and funds under management. The London head office moves to 15 Old Bailey.

With its roots firmly in the Quaker movement of the 19^th century, Stewardship becomes the first ethically screened unit trust to be offered by a UK life company. People who care about more than just money now have somewhere to invest.

New legislation allows lenders to collect mortgage interest net of tax. As a result, Friends Provident sells 55,000 low-cost endowment policies in a single year, compared to just 12,000 in 1982.

An Extraordinary General Meeting decides that the Board no longer requires a minimum of five directors to be members of the Society of Friends.

Margaret Thatcher sends in the troops as Argentina invades the Falkland Islands, a remote British colony.

Quotation, surrender values, premium and policy details are now a click away as the introduction of Frentel gives agents access to GLADIS from their own offices.

750 million people watch on television as the Prince of Wales marries Lady Diana Spencer in St. Paul's Cathedral.