I’ve worked in financial services since 1986, long enough to see tides ebb and flow and for the same stupid mistakes to come around again, sometimes in new and more interesting forms.

Businesses make the same mis-selling or PR mistakes, while the pendulum of policy intervention rarely stops in the right place and it frequently overshoots. Policymakers act in response to evolving circumstances; as an industry we have to accept often they are too slow to act on some issues and over-enthusiastic on others.

In pensions as elsewhere in public policy, there is an ongoing tension between individualism and libertarianism on the one hand, characterised by the shift to defined contribution pensions, the pension freedoms and the development of non-advised platform services; and on the other hand the recognition consumers need protection through defaults, good governance and restrictions on firms’ activities.

I have a lot more sympathy for politicians, regulators and the media than I used to. It is easy to conclude they don’t know what they’re doing and it’s true, often they don’t understand the minutiae of the industry’s technical considerations the way we do. They’re looking through a different lens, considering issues from the perspective of their particular responsibilities and constituencies.

Those external stakeholders have a healthy detachment from our narrow concerns of hitting next quarter’s sales targets and appeasing our shareholders. Too often still, people working in financial services forget they aren’t like most people. We are generally better educated and better paid, more financially literate, more secure, healthier, more white and more male than much of the rest of the population.

What’s more, the more power and influence people in the industry have, the truer these generalisations tend to become. Some parts of the industry still don’t understand the point about ‘where are the customer’s yachts’ and are too quick to defenestrate any dissenting voices or to just slap some more lipstick on the PR pig and carry on as before.

However, we are also mostly doing good stuff. Defined benefit pensions were never going to last and between us all, we’re doing a pretty good job responding to that reality, as well as to demographic, economic and cultural change. We’re addressing the challenges of long-term saving participation and overall savings rates; of financial engagement and literacy and of managing the risk/reward trade-offs.

The pensions tax system is still a mess. Gordon Brown sort of tidied it up in 2006 but since then, successive policy decisions in the Treasury and the Department for Work and Pensions have made it proper messy again.

I’d very much like to see a fundamental rethink, taking account of the success of auto-enrolment. My colleague Nathan Long at Hargreaves Lansdown has a really strong set of proposals for reform and as the present Covid-19 related crisis abates, the Treasury should engage with the industry on this issue. It is possible to put people more in control, to help them be more engaged, to reward socially beneficial behaviours more effectively and equitably and to do so at lower cost than is the case at present.

However to do these things requires courage and political capital, or alternatively a good crisis, as was the case for the coalition in 2010: 2021 could be the moment for bold reform.

I’ve worked on numerous industry forums and collaborative undertakings over the years, from lobbying for reform of annuity purchase rules, to working on common standards and scrutiny on transfers. I’ve sat on and in some cases chaired many committees. The financial services industry is fortunate to have organisations such as the ABI, the IA and TISA that not only speak up on the industry’s behalf but which also constantly challenge its members and lead them through change.

With the government still new and the coronavirus impact to deal with, this industry leadership will be more important than ever.

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