Analysis from Equifax Touchstone, a market leading intermediary database provider, shows that new pension investments (excluding transfers) jumped by over a third (36.8%) during Q1 2017, rising to £6.8 billion from £5.0 billion in Q4 2016. New inflows for the quarter were more than twice as high year on year, increasing by 55.4% (£4.4 billion) on Q1 2016.

According to the data, which covers more than 90% of the UK’s leading life and pensions companies, total pension investments including transfers for Q1 2017 reached £12.4 billion, up by 30.3% on the previous quarter.

The quarterly figures highlighted ongoing investor desire to switch to products that better suit their retirement needs, as transfers across all products rose by 23.3% to £5.6 billion.

Q1 2017 SIPP inflows stood at £3.0 billion, an increase of 16.6% on Q4 2016. Total SIPP sales for the quarter were up 25.0%.

John Driscoll, Director at Equifax Touchstone, said: “It’s encouraging to see such a positive start to 2017, well up on levels seen in 2016. Growth in pension inflows has proved resilient to political uncertainty and it will be interesting to see if concerns about whether stock markets are due a correction will start to impact inflows for the rest of the year.

“Advisers are receiving increasing requests from clients to opt out of their final salary scheme. As investors continue to weigh up the benefits of a guaranteed final salary pension, versus flexible access to their retirement savings, it’s likely this behaviour will follow through into the next quarter. Pension transfer volumes will continue the upward trend as ‘insistent clients’ give greater weight to flexibility in their financial planning.”  

Equifax Touchstone utilises intermediary and customer profiling tools to enable financial services providers obtain a detailed understanding of their marketplace and client base.

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For further information, please contact:

Sally Moore or Sonam Patel
Four Broadgate
Email: Equifax@fourbroadgate.com
Telephone: 020 3697 4200

Notes to editors:

Equifax Touchstone Limited. Equifax Touchstone Limited is one of the Equifax group companies based in the UK. Equifax Touchstone is registered in Scotland No: SC11340. Registered Office: Exchange Tower, 19 Canning Street, Edinburgh, Scotland, EH3 8EH.

Equifax Touchstone

Equifax Touchstone is a leading provider of strategic intermediary intelligence to financial product providers, delivering powerful benefits to its users. It operates a shared investment product data exchange with information provided by over 90 of the UK’s leading financial services companies.  It also operates the MyTouchstone database which is powered by the collective sales data of 77 major product providers, fund managers and platforms and inputs from thousands of intermediaries to help them understand how they perform compared to the other firms in their post area and across the UK.

About Equifax

Equifax, Inc. (“Equifax”) is a global information solutions company that uses trusted unique data, innovative analytics, technology and industry expertise to power organizations and individuals around the world by transforming knowledge into insights that help make more informed business and personal decisions. The company organizes, assimilates and analyzes data on more than 820 million consumers and more than 91 million businesses worldwide, and its database includes employee data contributed from more than 7,100 employers.

Headquartered in Atlanta, Ga., Equifax operates or has investments in 24 countries in North America, Central and South America, Europe and the Asia Pacific region. It is a member of Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500® Index, and its common stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol EFX. Equifax employs approximately 9,700 employees worldwide.

Some noteworthy achievements for the company include: Named to the Top 100 American Banker FinTech Forward list (2015-2016); named a Top Technology Provider on the FinTech 100 list (2004-2016); named an InformationWeek Elite 100 Winner (2014-2015); named a Top Workplace by Atlanta Journal Constitution (2013-2016); named one of Fortune’s World’s Most Admired Companies (2011-2015); named one of Forbes’ World’s 100 Most Innovative Companies (2015-2016). For more information, visit www.equifax.com.