A life and pensions firm has reported a rise of 13% in its underlying earnings before tax for quarter 3.

Aegon UK's figures increased up to £22million compared to £19million in 2013. However, this was a 15% fall in comparison with the quarter 2 earnings result – down from £26m.
Revenues generated by fees amounted to £112 million, with fees coming from the platform up 17% sequentially in the third quarter. Expenses relating to upgrading the platform came to £3m.
Earnings were up 5% to £18 million from life products, while they increased to £4m for pensions.

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During quarter 3 97 new auto enrolment schemes were added by the company, which is an IFP corporate member, and it gained 59,000 new customers – which was 10,000 more than in the previous quarter.
The latest figures also showed platform assets under administration reached £2.4bn.
However, the market consistent value of new business in the UK declined to £4m driven by lower margins arising from auto enrolment and lower margins and volumes on annuities, Aegon reported.
Adrian Grace, chief executive of Aegon UK, said: "We now have the fastest growing platform in the UK, and we expect this growth to continue driven by both our improvement programme to help advisers manage their clients, our new developments in technology and enhanced product range, which continues to develop.
"We're ready now to help all of our clients with the new pension flexibilities. We have market leading income drawdown and guaranteed products and have the only platform in the UK which provides solutions for advisers, workplace based employees and non-advised customers to and through retirement. This puts us in a really good position for the changes being introduced in April.
"We expect demand for guaranteed products, income drawdown and our platform across our three core channels of workplace, advisers and non-advised to continue to increase over the next few years and we are already now well established with clear propositions in each of these areas."

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