Nevertheless, barely extra pension pots have been accessed for the primary time, with the quantity climbing 4.9% from 705,661 to 739,535.
That means that whereas extra folks have been raiding their pension financial savings, as pension companies have been reporting, customers have been taking out smaller quantities.
The brand new FCA figures backed that up by exhibiting nearly all of pension plans accessed have been price lower than £10,000, most of which have been taken as money.
There have been round 320,000 pots accessed price lower than £10,000, with 279,229 of them cashed in and solely 6,397 taken as annuities.
Steve Webb, LCP accomplice and former Pensions Minister, stated: “These figures spotlight the truth that lots of of hundreds of individuals attain retirement every year with very small pension pots.”
On the prime finish there have been round 35,000 pension pots accessed price £250,000 or extra with the bulk taken as drawdown. Some 29,332 have been taken as drawdown, 3,800 as uncrystallised lump sum (UFPLS), simply over 2,000 as annuities and simply 407 as money.
The figures confirmed that gross sales of annuities fell significantly, with the variety of annuities bought in 2022/23 being 59,163, down 13.6% from 68,514 within the earlier yr.
The recognition of annuities was larger amongst older folks with 58% of annuities taken out by these aged between 55-74, and simply 33% taken out by these aged underneath 55. Some 8% of annuities have been taken out by these aged 75 or over.
Cashing in confirmed the other development with 69% of encashments taken out by 55-64 yr olds and simply 28% by these aged between 65-74. Some 2% of encashments have been by the over 75s and 1% by the underneath 55s.
The variety of DB to DC transfers continued to fall, dropping 32% from 26,619 in 2021/22 to 18,073 in 2022/23. The development confirmed a continued decline from the 30,596 in 2020/21.
The variety of companies that acquired DB transfers additionally dropped, falling from 120 to 116 between 2021/22 and 2022/23.
Brian Nimmo, head of redress options at actuarial consultancy OAC, stated: “Falling switch values are more likely to have accelerated the development as pension savers more and more see the chance in dropping the worth of the ensures in a DB pension by transferring right into a DC association.
“A big variety of advisers have stopped advising on DB transfers too as they determined that rising regulation makes it too dangerous for his or her enterprise, and the FCA’s ‘polluter pays’ reforms might speed up that development.”
