£6.45bn released in second year of pension freedoms

This is a rise from the £4,350m released in the first full year since the pension freedoms launched in Q2 2015.

Some individuals who payments in more than one quarter are double counted in the data. Taking these into account, total individuals across the four quarters amounts to 655,000.

Prior to pension freedoms, retirement income transactions (predominantly annuity purchase) were running at around 350,000 to 400,000 a year, according to Hargreaves Lansdown data.

On a quarterly basis, 176,000 people accessed £1,590m in Q1 2017 - up slightly from the £1,560m withdrawn in Q4 2016.

Tom McPhail, head of policy at Hargreaves Lansdown, commented: “After the initial bow-wave of demand in the first 2 quarters of 2015, the retirement income market appears to have settled and stabilised remarkably quickly. Annuity transactions (reported elsewhere) have stabilised too at around 20,000 a quarter; so all this data suggests the pension freedom reforms are bedding in well."