Funds under management at Standard Life Ireland €874 million to €7.7 billion in the first nine months of the year, as the Scottish life assurer benefited from underlying investment growth and increased sales.

The company said pension sales rose by 51 per cent on the back of increased consumer confidence. Post-retirement ARF sales were 26 per cent higher than the same period last year at €170 million.

Standard Life said investment bonds sales increased by 11 per cent to €155 million, as costumers continued to move long-term money into investments in reaction to near zero deposit rates.

"Diversification is key to successful investing, and we've seen a large increase of new cash invested in top selling Standard Life multi asset funds including: Myfolio, a range of funds designed to cater for customers different risk appetites, and Standard Life's Global Absolute Return Strategies Fund (GARs) our absolute return fund," said the group's head of marketing Brendan Barr.

Standard Life Ireland’s parent meanwhile reported €4.3 billion pounds of net inflows in the nine months through to September as it added 290,000 new customers in the UK.

Assets under administration from continuing operations were £290 billion, the Edinburgh-based company said. Fee-based revenue climbed 13 per cent to £1.03 billion from a year earlier.

Standard Life is the UK’s second-best performing life insurance stock behind Aviva , boosted by the $3.7 billion sale of its Canadian unit to Manulife.

Standard Life Investments, the insurer’s asset management arm, reported third-party net inflows from continuing operations of £4.6 billion. Assets under management for external clients increased 42 per cent to £240.7 billion.

Third quarter inflows were £600 million after £800 million of outflows from a low revenue margin mandate that had been announced at the half year. A remaining £1.5 billion pounds from the mandate is expected to be withdrawn in the fourth quarter, the company said.

Additional reporting: Bloomberg