The sponsor of the Institute of Financial Planning firm added 41 adviser firms to the platform with an average of £9.2m in assets under administration per firm, up from £7.9m in 2011.

Platform business was described as having ‘good momentum’ and collectively platforms accounted for over 200,000 customers.

Sipp customers grew by 24 per cent year on year to 141,000 with assets under administration increasing to £17.5bn, up from £16.4bn in January.

Regarding the RDR, it said the retail business has ‘scale and momentum’ and was ‘ideally positioned to continue to drive asset growth through our leading propositions’.

It hoped to benefit from the RDR and the introduction of auto-enrolment via increased participation in their pension schemes.

David Nish, chief executive, said: “Standard Life has had a resilient start to 2012 despite the uncertain economic environment and fragile consumer confidence which has affected new business volumes in the first quarter against a strong start to last year. Against this backdrop our performance has been good.”