The number of people taking advantage of pension freedoms hit an all-time high between April and July this year, as 159,000 people accessed £1.7bn of their pension savings.
The latest figures show the total value of payments to more than £6billion across 772,000 payments since the launch of the pension freedoms in April 2015.
People accessing their pensions are also using the government's free pension's guidance service, Pension Wise, which has had over 2.7 million visits to the website and nearly 75,000 appointments to date.
Pension Wise was set up to give consumers information to make informed decisions about their pensions.
Economic secretary to the Treasury, Simon Kirby, said: "It's only right that people should have a choice over what they do with their money and today's figures show that pension freedoms continue to be a popular choice."
"Our pension reforms have already given hundreds of thousands of people access and responsibility over their hard-earned savings and we will continue to make sure that the pension freedoms work well for everyone."
The government has also announced plans to protect consumers by capping early exit fees, allowing earlier access to Pension Wise guidance, and working with industry to introduce a pensions dashboard.
It will extend the freedoms even further, giving millions more people the ability to sell income from their annuities from April 2017, subject to agreement from their annuity provider.
While supportive of the pension freedoms, global insurance and investment specialist Aviva said its own research highlights the need for vigilance to make the long-term interests of savers are protected.
The Real Retirement Report, published earlier this week, said although awareness of new freedoms is "riding high", a relatively large group of people expect to borrow money during retirement.
"Money is tight for many and accelerated use of the pension freedoms could exacerbate the needs to borrow," the report said.
First published 04.08.2016
Lindsay.sharman@wilmingtonplc.com
