Hansard Global, the specialist long-term savings provider, saw new business for the financial year ended 30 June 2021 rise 8.3% from £159.8m in FY 2020 to £173.0m.

New business for Q4 2021 was £49.4m, 19.6% higher than £41.3m in Q4 2020, its new business results revealed today (22 July).

The international life company said new business had continued to recover from the most severe Covid-19 restrictions in place last year as pent up cash savings are being invested.

Assets under administration "continue to grow strongly" and totalled £1.228bn at 30 June 2021, up 4.0% from £1.181bn at 31 March 2021 and up 13.7% from £1.081bn at 30 June 2020.

Graham Sheward, group chief executive, said: "In an exceptionally challenging financial year, Hansard has delivered a positive new business result, finishing 8.3% up on financial year 2020, with signs that the outlook for savings and investment products is continuing to improve. I would like to thank all our employees and distribution partners for their hard work and resilience in delivering this result.

Having been in the Group CEO role for the past two months, I have been encouraged and enthused by the level of activity taking place to ensure Hansard's long-term success.

He added: "My initial focus is on delivering the launch of our new proposition in Japan, something that continues to be dependent on the Covid-19 position improving in Japan.

We continue to expect this initiative to deliver significant growth in the coming financial year and I look forward to updating our stakeholders in more detail on this and other corporate objectives when we release our full financial year 2021 results in September."