Tisa has intrigued me, I encountered it first time through its first CEO Tony Vine-Lott at the beginning of the century and now I had the chance to reinvest my imagination with Carol Knight. I asked yesterday whether TISA were an irrelevance or worth investing my time.
Thanks to those who sent me replies, I loved Jon Spain’s R’ n R’ definition,
we should use RnR to mean risk PLUS reward
We should embrace risk to get reward but only where we can see the reward justifies the risk. Carol and I spent some time discussing the positive aspects of risk.
But the most thoughtful response was from Tom McPhail who I take as pretty balanced on these matters.
I’ve had a fair amount t of involvement with TISA over the years, with the ABI, the IA and the PLSA too. TISA are qualitatively different to the others.
The trade bodies exist to serve their members. I have seen at first hand how shockingly cynical they can be in pursuit of that objective: subscription paying members come first and to hell with the consumer.
TISA acts always through the filter of ‘Is this in the consumers’ best interests?’ That’s important.
You can argue TISA is irrelevant, personally I disagree: they are good at getting the industry to collaboratively solve problems and they are good at engaging with policymakers on issues of material impact to the industry and consumers, BUT always through the filter of whether it is in consumers’ best interests.
I wanted to know what TISA had done of late to make a difference and Carol Knight pointed to two very practical examples
- Stopping caps on cash ISAs which Tisa said to the Treasury would simply result in money returning to non-productive bank accounts. The emphasis must be on education on where risk is worth taking (see Jon Spain’s comment)
- Encouraging the FCA to develop a new system of advice. One the FCA announced in June of this year
Consumer access to a choice of guidance, targeted support, simplified advice and full financial advice should help reduce the so-called ‘advice gap’. This supports our ambition that consumers should have access to the help and guidance that they need, at a cost they can afford, when they need it, to make informed decisions about their financial lives.
These are obscure areas of financial services for the institutional investors , professional trustees and investment advisers I spend a lot of time with, but what Carol Knight, the latest CEO of Tisa taught me , is that a consumer orientated trade body can be effective.
There are areas of Tisa’s work that I don’t fully agree with, neither I or Tom McPhail believe that the tough line taken by HMT and HMRC on inheritance tax is wrong. We are heading towards a pension system where you either buy into a non-refundable pension/annuity or have the flexibility of a drawdown but without the tax advantages on inheritance, TISA differs , but that is a minor matter.
What matters to make me side with TISA?
I have to admit I was genuinely confused by TISA and that probably went back to conversations many years ago.
What I see in Carol Knight is what I have seen in Michelle Cracknell. Both had a time at Skandia and have since worked in developing support for people taking decisions about their money
They are educators who are “passionate about helping people make the most of their money”. Both have had fantastically varied careers and I hope that they will use the years to come to do more for Britain, the five years that Michelle spent at the Pension Advisory Service to 2018 shaped my thinking for AgeWage and I suspect that Carol will do something for the direction many of us shall take in giving and taking advice on how to take risk and how to use it to invest for our future.
I hope to link Carol and Tisa to people in the world that I normally inhabit to make the needs of consumers better known to those who occupy institutional roles.
What matters to make me side with Carol and Tisa and support them (rather than dismiss them as irrelevant as I have till now), what matters is the spirit of Michelle Cracknell’s TPAS and Carol Knight’s TISA.
Travelling home from my lunch with Carol I realised that people do make a difference. If you get a call from me about TISA, be sure it is well intentioned – I want that spirit generated by this fine woman with me to touch other organisations. Women seem to be much more important today than they were 20 years ago!
Too late for the original publication here is Katherine Photiou’s comment on linked in
Hi Henry, I strongly disagree. There are multiple examples of where Tisa has influenced and led positive changes in the savings and investment landscape for members.
Ask Carol about Targeted support. It would not be in consultation today without Tisa – fact. The work on this started in Tisa March 2020 – I was there on the calls with the FCA.
Ask her about the work they are doing on risk warnings purely for consumers, the changes on IHT administration, let the evidence tell the facts.