Pensioners have cashed in a record £5.7billion from their retirement pots so far this year. The scale of the draw-downs has led to warnings that pensioners may face a lack of cash in later life.
Official figures on the amount withdrawn since January means the total amount raided from retirement savings has reached a staggering £21.6billion in the three years since pension freedoms were introduced.
Evidence that people were starting to treat their retirement nest egg as a bank account emerged in figures released by HMRC. They showed that as many as 585,000 withdrawals were made by 258,000 people in the three months to the end of September, to a total of nearly £2billion.
In the three-and-a-half years of pension freedoms, nearly five million withdrawals have been made by more than 1.3 million people, totalling £21.6billion.
About the Author: Glen Callow
