Self-invested personal pension provider Liberty Sipp has increased its assets under administration by 87 per cent over the last year, pushing the total figure past the billion pound mark.
As of 1 April 2017, the provider was administrating £1.45bn in 8,647 individual Sipps.
Over the year, 2,652 new clients opened Sipps with Liberty Sipp, a 45 per cent increase on the April 2016 figure.
The provider also increased its adviser base by 53 per cent, bringing the total number of advice firms it works with to 535.
Matthew Rankine, director of sales and marketing at Liberty Sipp, described the year's growth as "both a milestone and a challenge" for the firm.
“While we’re delighted that our rapid growth has catapulted us into the big league of Sipp providers, we’re determined to protect and improve the asset that got us here – our reputation for offering a personal, fast and efficient service," he said.
“The Sipp market is a crowded one, and Liberty’s personal touch is both what makes us stand out and the reason so many financial advisers now choose to work with us," he added.
He said the provider had invested "heavily" in new technology over the last 12 months to help meet greater numbers of clients.
LIberty Sipp currently employs more than 40 people and plans to increase staff by 30 per cent in 2017.
Earlier this year, FTAdviser reported Liberty Sipp was in discussions with a number of robo-advisers to offer Sipps through robo-advice platforms.
Mr Rankine said the provider had already signed three deals to provide Sipp administration to robo-advisers, with two more about to be signed.
One of these firms was Flying Colours, a low-cost online and phone-based advice service set up by former employees of Octopus Investment.
Mr Rankine did not reveal the identities of the other four.
He said that, with as many as "50 or 60 robo-advisers and online investment" start-ups attempting to break into the market, the issue was not finding companies looking to make deals, but finding the ones that would succeed.
“We’ve got to pick the ones that are going to do the numbers they say they are going to do," he said, adding the firm had knocked "quite a few" providers back.
Last year, new capital adequacy requirements were introduced for Sipp providers that offer non-standard assets, in a move to protect Sipp investors from scammers.
This new rule caused a large number of Sipp providers - Liberty Sipp included - to stop offering non-standard assets. However, like many full Sipp providers, Liberty Sipp still allows its customers to invest in commercial property.
The clamp down on Sipps has led to fears that scammers are now targeting the Sipp's unregulated cousin, the small self-administered scheme (Ssas).
This led The Pensions Regulator to propose banning Ssas altogether - a suggestion that outraged many in the industry.
james.fernyhough@ft.com
