Nucleus, the Edinburgh-based wrap platform provider, has reported a 26per cent rise in first-quarter pre-tax profit to £564,000, following last month's posting of record-breaking full year profits of £2.5million.

Gross inflows totalled £510m, up 6per cent from the same period in 2014, with assets under administration reaching £8.7bn, up 28per cent, while turnover was also up 28 per cent at £6.8m.

Nucleus was founded as an adviser-owned business and IFA firms still hold a 51per cent stake, with wealth manager Sanlam holding 43per cent and staff the balance.

Mr Ferguson said: "As an adviser-built platform, this very positive start to the year is further validation of our collaborative-working business model.

"The past 12 months have been a hugely important period of development for us and now that we're operating on the latest platform technology and with a broader and more experienced management team than ever before, we remain massively excited about what the future holds for the business."

He added that results just in from the company's annual census of its 808 member firms revealed that confidence about the future of advisers' own businesses "remained extremely high with an overwhelming 100 per cent of our users being 'confident' about the future".

Mr Ferguson commented: "The one thing the industry could do with is a bit of stability with regulation." He said former LibDem pensions minister Steve Webb had been widely respected and had driven important reforms. "It would be disappointing if we were to lose momentum or worse, go backwards on some of the changes we have seen."

Nucleus has a share of around 10 per cent of a platform market growing at 25 per cent a year, with Alliance Trust Savings recently setting itself a target to grow its business from £7bn to £45bn over five years. Mr Ferguson commented: "The market is beginning to split between those who have found enough scale and two or three who could get left behind....but I am not sure there are that many platforms wanting to be bought."