The ABI and two major pension providers have reported a surge in enquiries about retirement planning after the reforms took effect on April 6.

ABI members reported handling over 200,000 calls from customers in the first week.

Standard Life, an IFP corporate member, said its staff had seen a 550% rise in people using its retirement choices tool online in the same period.

Scottish Widows said on Tuesday 7 April staff were dealing with around 3000 calls – three times as many as normal. The firm said it was prepared to deal with two years' worth of normal demand in a two or three month period.

{desktop}{/desktop}{mobile}{/mobile}

Between Tuesday 7 and Friday 10 April ABI members received 229,932 phone calls from customers interested in finding out more about their pension options under the reforms.

This was a 214% increase in average call volumes that would be expected during the period, the ABI said, equating to an average of 57,483 calls each day.

Over 10,000 written and email requests were received each day, more than double the average, ABI officials added.

Richard Jones, annuity & protection director at Scottish Widows, said: "We had more than 600 calls over the Easter weekend vindicating our decision to open but by Tuesday we were handling around 3000 calls a day – that's around three times the normal level. We have also had over a thousand customer requests come in via our retirement planning website, which has had around 250,000 views since it was launched in March."

He expects call volumes and customer enquiries to continue at this level for weeks.

Around five times as many people used Standard Life's online retirement planning tools in week one of the reforms compared to the previous month, the company reported.

Over 1500 customers carried out transactions online with Standard Life.

Jamie Jenkins, pensions expert at Standard Life, said: "The fact that pensions has recently been so high on the news has spurred many into action to start thinking about their pension – the number of people looking at our online tools is up around 550%; it's great to see that people are realising the importance of researching all the options before making a decision regarding their retirement."