Platform and SIPP provider AJ Bell has reported a jump in advised customers over the past year of 8% to reach 174,000, according to a quarterly trading update issued today.

Total customer numbers were up by 16% (19,000) to 561,000 over the past year - up 4% on the previous quarter.

Key figures reported today:

• Total advised customers of 174,000, up 8% in the last year and 2% in the quarter
• Total D2C customers of 387,000, up 20% in the last year and 4% in the quarter
• Record assets under administration of £89.5 billion, up 17% in the last year and 3% in the quarter

The company said it saw a year-on-year increase in gross and net inflows across the platform. Gross inflows in the quarter were £3.6 billion (2023: £2.7 billion) with net inflows in the quarter of £1.4 billion (2023: £1.3 billion)

There were favourable market movements of 2% of opening AUA, the firm said.

The company’s investment arm AJ Bell Investments saw Assets under Management (“AUM”) of £7.2 billion, up 38% in the last year and 6% in the quarter. Net inflows in the quarter of £0.4 billion, in line with the prior year (2023: £0.4 billion)

AJ Bell CEO Michael Summersgill said: “I am pleased to report a strong start to the financial year as we continued to attract thousands of new customers and increased levels of assets, resulting in a record 561,000 platform customers and £89.5 billion of platform assets under administration.

“AJ Bell Investments continues to perform exceptionally well with quarterly net inflows of £0.4 billion resulting in total AUM surpassing £7 billion for the first time.

“During the quarter we continued to see the benefits of our dual-channel model and the high-quality propositions that we offer to both the advised and D2C market segments.

He added that Budget speculation about pensions taxation had caused a “short-term behavioural change” among retail investors, which normalised quickly once the content of the Budget became known.