Pension freedom withdrawals per person hit record low in Q4 2018

£23.6bn withdrawn since 2015

Hannah Godfrey
clock • 1 min read

Average pension freedom withdrawals dropped to a record low of £7,197 per person in the last three months of 2018, down from £7,597 in the previous quarter, according to data from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).

In total, 264,000 people withdrew £1.9bn from their pensions during the final quarter of 2018. This means some £23.6bn has now been flexibly withdrawn from retirement pots since the reforms launched in April 2015. AJ Bell senior analyst Tom Selby said it was too early to draw solid conclusions about why the average withdrawal figure had dropped, but did suggest it could be a sign of people beginning to show restraint in how they spent their retirement pots. "Millions of savers in drawdown have faced torrid markets during 2018, with the FTSE 100 down 12% and most funds delivering negat...

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