Royal London has revealed a strong performance across its pensions business, with its Royal London Group Pension Scheme moving out of deficit.

According to its Half year results, the Royal London Group Pension Scheme had a surplus of £1m at 30 June 2017 from a deficit of £10m at 30 June 2016 and £26m at 31 December 2016.

Royal London pension scheme assets grew to £137m at the end of June from £116m the same time last year.

As part of its Consolidated Income Statement, on an EEV basis for the six months ended 30 June 2017, the movement in Royal London Group Pension Scheme recorded a surplus of £27m from a deficit of £102m in the six months to 30 June 2016.

Royal London’s new life and pensions business was also up by 45 per cent to £6,078m from £4,201m the previous year.

Furthermore, Individual Pensions and Drawdown new business sales were up by 64 per cent to £2,916m from £1,783m at 30 June 2016. Group Pensions news business sales alse rose by 32 per cent to £2,527m from £1,921m at 30 June 2016.

“The strong new business performance in the first half of the year reflects growth in the overall market size and significant success in our proposition, particularly the Drawdown Governance service. In addition to these factors, we have also experienced a net increase in individual pensions business from the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) introduction of the early exit charge cap, primarily through our focus on offering products which are good value for money,” the report noted.

“We have indicated for some time that we expect a slowdown in workplace pensions, and the pipeline of schemes from auto-enrolment has indeed shown signs of reducing primarily as a result of reaching the final stages of auto-enrolment in 2017 where new schemes, which did not exist before 2012, are not taking adviser-led decisions. As a result Group Pensions new business is expected to be lower in the second half of the year,” Royal London added.

Royal London group chief executive Phil Loney commented: “During 2017 we have consolidated our position as one of the new business leaders in the retail protection, pension and drawdown markets, and as one of the main providers of new workplace pension schemes entering auto-enrolment.

“We continue to invest in our capabilities to increase value for money for customers and to make it easier for their advisers to do business with us. For example the new Royal London Review Service launched in July 2017 automatically collates all Royal London pensions information for advisers into individual tailored client reports; advisers are then able to focus their time on providing important advice and recommendations for their clients based on this insight.”

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