There were negative financial results from both Aviva and Alliance Trust Savings.

Aviva posted a £169 million loss resulting from the arm of its business that includes its investment platform, while Alliance Trust recorded a loss of £19.3 million for 2017.

Alliance Trust also said in its report that “following a year of poor financial performance” the directors cut the firm’s fair value by £23.5m to £38m.

Operations relating to non-insurance activities of the Aviva Group, including the platform business, incurred a loss of £169 million compared to £94 million in 2016.

Aviva bosses said this “reflects an increased investment in the development of the digital business,” but it had been “partly offset by income relating to insurance recoveries of £32 million”.

However, Aviva reported net inflows of £6.2 billion to its platform, bringing the platform to total assets of £20.2 billion, up 56% from the end of 2016.

Fund management operating profit improved to £164 million (2016: £138 million) driven by revenue growth of 14% reflecting the full year benefit of the transfer of Friends Life assets and continued growth in the AIMS range of funds.

UK long-term savings managed assets have increased to £118 billion (2016: £105 billion) during the period.

The Alliance Trust report stated it had incurred “significant costs to resolve customer service issues following the integration of the Stocktrade operations in Dundee”.

It said: “ATS has had a challenging year. While the business has continued to attract additional assets and now has more than 110,000 customer accounts, ATS incurred a particularly high level of costs in 2017.

“In 2017, ATS generated an operating loss of £6.1m before exceptional expenses. ATS has written down the value of its intangible assets, related to the Stocktrade business, which has resulted in an exceptional charge of £13.2m. After this charge, ATS's loss for the year was £19.3m.
 
“With an encouraging start to our new investment approach and a continuation of our progressive dividend we believe the foundations are now firmly in place for Alliance Trust to deliver strong and sustainable performance for our shareholders for generations to come.”