This article is the transcript of a speech given by Joe Garner, Group General Manager PFS at HSBC.  It talks about how important trust is to the financial sector and how it can be gained or lost.

A selection of videos from the Good Governance Forum Conference that took place on 9th March 2011, organised by Tomorrow’s Company and hosted by Berwin Leighton Paisner LLP.

The affordability of pensions and how they are to be funded must be looked at in the light of the nation’s long-term economic and social objectives.  In this context, the terms ‘support’ and ‘dependence’ are used and measured in an unhelpful way that incorrectly assumes a one-way relationship.  The elderly are depicted as dependent ‘takers’, but they also support the economy and society through paying taxes and voluntary activities. Instead of looking at the ‘old age support ratio’ policymakers should focus on the ‘total economic support ratio’, which relates the number of people who are working to the numbers not working.  This was 0.48 in 2003 and is projected to decline to 0.45 by 2041.  At this point it will be almost the same as it was in 1961.

Tomorrow's Company have a long history of looking at how the financial services work as part of an overall system and where the weaknesses are, major publications include Tomorrow's Global Company (2007), Restoring Trust (2004) and Tomorrow's Owners (to be launched in October 2008).  We are in a strong position to help frame solutions to the current financial crisis, however not a think tank for knee jerk reactions, we are currently having healthy debate about what policies should be.  We are sharing some of this on forceforgood.com in the form of resources and blogs tagged with the issue 'global financial crisis'.  We aim not just to be transparent in our thoughts but to encourage comments from a forceforgood community.