Pension investments up 66% in Q3

Transfers across all products rose by 54.3% year-on-year and 5% during the quarter to reach £6.4 billion. SIPP transfers have more than doubled over 12 months to reach £1.9 billion.

According to the data, which covers more than 90% of the UK’s life and pensions companies, total pension investments excluding transfers reached £7.0 billion in Q3 2017, a marginal gain of 0.9% (£59.2 million) on the previous quarter and a significant increase of 78.9% (£3.1 billion) year-on-year.

Despite positive quarterly figures overall, total SIPP sales (excluding transfers) suffered, decreasing by 4.1% on Q2 figures.

John Driscoll, Director at Equifax Touchstone, said: “Pension investments during the quarter have remained extremely positive, building on strong performance throughout the first half of the year. Inflows remained resilient to political and market uncertainty, buoyed by strong performance of stock markets.

“Although speculation leading up to the Autumn Budget may impact Q4 figures, the lack of legislative change within the final Budget will have ultimately stabilised the pension sector. In the final quarter of the year we expect to see high volumes of pension transfers persist; defined benefit transfers in particular will continue to soar as savers look to benefit from temptingly high transfer values.”