AXA Wealth, the wealth management arm of the life insurance group AXA UK, boosted assets under management by £1.5 billion ($2.4 billion) to £20.1 billion in the opening quarter of the year.

The wealth manager said in an interim statement that sales across its divisions were £845 million in the three months ended 31 March, half of which in its platform business, Elevate.

Elevate's assets under administration stood at £4 billion at the end of March, up from £3.5 billion at the end of 2011, while Architas, AXA’s specialist investment company, saw assets increase by 37 per cent to £10.7 billion.

AXA Wealth said in a statement that it thinks it can continue to capitalise on the trend of advisors turning to platforms as a result of the UK regulator’s Retail Distribution Review.

While the RDR, which is designed to increase advisors’ qualifications and stamp out the use of commission payments, has forced some IFAs to go out of business or sell up, it has also encouraged networks and platforms to gain market share.