Royal London blames RDR as Ascentric new business drops again

Royal London has blamed the ‘dampening effects’ of the retail distribution review (RDR) on further new business falls on its Ascentric wrap over the third quarter of 2012.

For the nine months to 30 September 2012 total assets under administration on the Ascentric wrap grew by 42% to £4.4 billion.

However new business fell 18% from over £1 billion to £857 million.

This continues the trend set in the first half of 2012 where new assets onto the wrap dropped by 21%, from £741 to £587 million compared with the year before.

Royal London blamed economic conditions combined with the pressures of the RDR for the drop in new business. It said these factors had ‘dampened growth’ across the whole platform market.

Royal London Group increased funds under management by 10% to £48.7 billion, compared to the same period in 2011.

Royal London Asset Management (RLAM) also saw a drop in new business of 28% from £218 million over the third quarter of 2011 to £157 million in 2012. However total funds under management are up by 17% to £47 billion.

Phil Loney (pictured), group chief executive of Royal London Group, said: ‘RLAM, as we expected, has reported strong net inflows over the last quarter. This is particularly pleasing given some outflows experienced earlier this year which, with changing market characteristics and investor appetites, is the nature of fund management.  We have exceptional management and first class teams in place to deliver the right product offerings and high quality, consistent returns to our investors.

Total new life and pensions business (on a PVNBP basis) was equal to the same period in 2011 at £2.6 billion.

Sales of pensions at Scottish Life suffered only a slight dip of 2% to £1.8 billion.