UK savers invested £15bn into the retail fund market in 2019 bolstering tracker fund inflows to a record £18.1bn, according to the Investment Association (IA), while active funds suffered outflows.
As a result of a rallying equity market, some £8.9bn of the £18.1bn that went into tracker funds were equity exposures.
In tandem with passive's growing assets, active funds saw £3.2bn in outflows in light of the Woodford scandal which saw its fund gated in June and eventually closed.
Retail’s £15bn investment in 2019 is more than double of that in the previous year. Funds under management in the UK reached an all-time high of £1.3trn by the year’s end.
Furthermore, the IA also announced responsible investment funds received £1.3bn in new net assets in Q4 2019 across both passive and active strategies. This was up from £190m in the first quarter of the year.
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Chris Cummings, chief executive of the IA, commented: "As global stock markets climbed, many savers swung heavily behind tracker funds in 2019.
"Amid significant political uncertainty and challenging economic headwinds globally, the amount managed in funds on behalf of UK savers grew to new heights of £1.3trn."
