Anniversary/ 25 years or a quarter of a century in Financial Services?

It all comes to pass in December 2010

It is hard to believe that in the winter of 1985, a spotty teenager (namely me!) joined a bank in a small branch in Surrey and began his career in Financial Services. As we draw towards the winter of 2010, I can look back over a quarter of a century of unbroken service in UK retail financial services.

25 years later, the world has changed since that cold December morning when I rolled up for my first day, having experienced my first dose of redundancy the week before. We have moved from the Margaret Thatcher era with the promotion of financial services, Big Bang and Black Monday, through the Blair/Brown ‘New Labour’ years of ‘no more boom and bust’ to what appears to be a time of austerity under the Coalition Government of Messer’s Cameron and Clegg.

In financial services, we have seen everything from the PIA to the FSA to MIRAS to LAPR and QE to the banking crisis, recession and now, as already noted, austerity. We seem to love our acronyms, don’t we! I have gone into more detail about my personal journey through these changes in my first book, Sign Here, Here and Here!…Journey of a financial adviser (Available from Waterstones/Amazon)

It has been a pleasure to serve the public in such a diverse and dynamic role and I am looking forward to the next 25 years. I will be aged 68 by the end of this time and based on the way the minimum State Pension age is increasing, I should be just in time to sign off after 50 years and collect my State Pension at that stage, if it still exists. With careful planning, most should be able to enjoy a comfortable retirement.

The best part of the journey for me has been the customers and clients that I have looked after in that time. They make the whole profession worthwhile and I thank them for the trust that they have placed in me and my company, Churchouse Financial Planning Limited, over the 6 years that we have been offering our financial solutions. A big thank you to you all, both past, present and future and I look forward to the next few decades and the challenges that these will bring.

We are all different and therefore, this article should not be seen or used as individual advice. Seek Independent Financial Advice (IFA) for your circumstances.

Further details of the book and our service are available at our websites, www.signherehereandhere.co.uk or www.churchouse.com

Keith Churchouse, Chartered Financial Planner

ISO22222 Certified Financial Planner

Director of Churchouse Financial Planning Limited

Churchouse Financial Planning Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority. The Financial Services Authority does not regulate taxation advice.