Scottish Widows’ owner Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) is “believed to be in advanced talks” with Standard Life Aberdeen to buy Standard Life’s corporate pensions business and merge it with Scottish Widows, according to a report in trade publication Corporate Adviser.

Such a deal would make Scottish Widows the largest corporate pensions provider in the UK.

It would follow on from an announcement by LBG on Thursday that it would acquire Zurich’s UK workplace pensions and savings business with assets under administration of more than £15 billion.

A deal would also advance Standard Life Aberdeen’s aim of focusing 100% on asset management.

A Standard Life Aberdeen spokesperson told Corporate Adviser: “Anything beyond what is in our prospectus is speculative.

“In terms of our pension and savings business more broadly – it has built a strong position in both the UK platform and workplace pension markets.

“Our commitment to this market has been demonstrated in a number of ways recently through the acquisition of the Elevate platform, the continued expansion, through acquisition of our national advice arm – 1825 – and reaching over 1 million employees auto-enrolled since 2012.”