Cash is king, Peter Hargreaves, chief executive of financial advisers Hargreaves Lansdowne declared today.

The Bristol-based firm has long eschewed some of its rivals dash for growth on the back of heavy borrowings. In the nine-months to end-March, it earned £2 million on corporate cash balances. While lower than the £2.3 million earned a year earlier, this is not a bad sum, given tumbling interest rates.

Hargreaves said: "The board's decision to shun borrowing and hold significant cash balances is now the business model in vogue, unlike the gearing that has led to much grief elsewhere."

He said trading conditions were amongst the most difficult he had seen since the business was started in 1981.

But while the FTSE All Share Index fell 10% in the three months to March, Hargreaves had a 3% rise in assets under management to £10.2 billion.

In the run-up to the end of the tax year on 5 April new ISA sales for the year were down from £430 million to £412 million, while self-invested pension plans totals slipped from £1.16 billion to £1.09 billion.

"These results demonstrate that we can increase both assets under management and revenues in some of the most difficult trading conditions," said Hargreaves.

He added that the group has exhibited its ability to attract clients even while the financial services sector is discredited.

"Whilst some of our business volumes for the tax year just ended are lower than the previous year's this must be compared with general volumes in the market place, which we believe indicate we have materially improved our market share."

Revenues for the third quarter rose by 10% to £32.8 million, giving a running total for the first nine months of the financial year of £98.4 million - up 12%.

Of that amount, 71% is recurring revenues such as renewal commissions, management fees or earned interest.

At the other end of the consumer financial services market, the price comparison website Moneysupermarket.com has seen revenues crash by a third in the first quarter of its new financial year. In the financial sector revenues have halved with travel and insurance down 10% .

Chief executive Peter Plumb said: "Trading levels appear to have stabilised over the first quarter. We have taken actions to reconfigure our costs."