I thought I’d do a blog in two parts this morning. The first represents how I feel about TISA, not as a member but as the sort of person who thinks that money is lazy if it isn’t invested.

The second part will follow lunch with Carol Knight who I met a few weeks back at an Accenture/Altus event. She knew of me and I knew of her and we both decided it would be best to have lunch. That should have happened but didn’t as Carol had a last minute broadcasting obligation so we’re doing lunch today. The second part will change the first part I expect!

Part one’s my view of the need for TISA

TISA is supported by 270 members who are financial services organisations benefiting from individuals using financial services. I think that it focuses on savings and incentives and I hope that the emphasis of TISA is to make the deal better for consumers and its members in even parts.

My view of TISA is that frankly it isn’t very important to many outside the 270 members who it represents in important places. It isn’t important and it doesn’t care.

This is my part one estimation

Part two; is my thinking getting changed by lunch with the boss- Carol

My worry is that TISA really doesn’t give a damn about the savers and is giving out a lot of platitudes about financial education in school etc. as cover to keep the financial products flourishing. The second question is whether TISA is about the existing wealthy who needs protection or about those who don’t invest but ought to. I hope that Carol and I will agree that “risk” is a difficult word which is not promoted as a positive for long-term investors and is rolled out by consumerists called Lewis as something to be avoided. If we can agree on a way to approach risk, then my ambivalent view of TISA will change, if I come away thinking TISA is risk averse then I will put it in the same box as the various professions who have so ruined pensions in the past quarter of a century.

And for this blog to end up being positive about TISA, I am going to have to change my view of TISA that I have, that it sees pensions as personal and not collective. Personal pensions are things you opt into if you don’t want collective pensions and collective pension scheme offer better value to those who have insufficient time or interest or competence to manage their own retirement income. I can see a lot on TISA’s website about pensions but most of it is about tax planning, especially inheritance tax-planning. I suspect that we will not come to a comfortable conclusion here (but maybe I have got a little carried away with disputes after all the Anchorage/Washington stuff).

Version 1.0 of this blog

I think that I probably represent quite a few people when considering TISA irrelevant to most people who don’t work for its 270 members.

I think it probably does want to change the attitude of Britain to risk but I will find out how genuine Carol is about promoting risk as a means to make money less lazy (my view).

I think that TISA is out of tune with most people on pensions and battling for the wealth managers and the wealthy not the wider public.

I wait to see if I am anything more than a prejudiced person. And I’m sure that having a nice lunch with someone who seems a very open person, is going to be worth it.

Your views on Tisa before noon today will be brought into the conversation.