£9.2bn accessed under pension freedoms

Almost 400,000 payments from pension pots were flexibly accessed in the last three months of 2016, making that by far the most popular quarter for payments since the policy's introduction.  The 394,000 payments made in the final quarter of 2016 represents a 20% increase on the 324,000 payments made in the previous three-month period. While the number of payments from pension pots rose significantly in the last quarter, HMRC's figures show the number of individuals accessing their pension pots only rose from 158,000 to 162,000 - a 2.5% increase. With £1.56bn flexibly accessed in the...