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Roll up, roll up. It is the mis-selling opportunity of a lifetime, so make sure you do not miss out. From 6 April there will be £130bn of cash to fight over so make sure you get your share.

Not since the launch of personal pensions, has there been such a one-off mis-selling opportunity and already some are twitching at the prospect of the starting gun being fired.

The changes in Isa rules will allow money stored in cash Isas to be transferred to shares and bonds. There is a massive pool of cash and many of those who have accumulated will be stock market virgins, so it should not be too difficult to pool the wool over their eyes.

Particularly attractive will be the pensioners who have squirreled away £3000 a year since 1999 and built up a Tessa before that. With interest they may well have £45,000 or more as cash lump-sum. A decent initial commission on that should shove £3000 into your trouser pocket with the minimum of effort.

And research showing that most IFAs still rely on initial commission suggests the fight will be a fierce one. In all honesty that money is better used for your pension than theirs, isn't it?

I would start by aiming for someone in their late 70s or 80s. The older they are the more trusting they will be and the more suitable for their first stock market investment.

A good old insurance bond should serve you well. It will pay a whacking amount of commission with minimum effort on your part. And if the punter notices that the pile of money they have accumulated has suddenly grown rather smaller, you can always blame the stock market and point out that they should have paid rather better attention to the small print.

If you do not fancy an insurance bond then you could try a cautious managed fund. A few big players have launched these over the past few months and they can really only have one target in mind, can't they?

For nifty marketing, take a tip from Alliance & Leicester, which is offering 10 per cent on cash Isa transfers, but half the money must go into the stock market.

Be quick because the FSA will doubtless swing into action and deliver a stern warning - given their rack record I would suggest you have at best a couple of years to act.

Good luck!

Loyalty rewarded

One million Norwich Union investors, whose money is in the CULAC and CGNU funds, will soon have a letter dropping on their doormats setting out details of the Special Bonus being paid over the next three years.

Meanwhile Norwich Union is continuing to put out messages that this could be the only money they will get. Norwich Union's argument is that if it is likely to get bad publicity for a reattribution of its inherited estate then why should it bother at all. Better to keep a low profile and avoid the flack.

If it really believes this then it is in danger of making another bad call because after two years it is much too far down the road to pull out now. To do so would make it look like a toddler clinging to the football because nobody else wants to play by its particular rules.

Policyholders believe they are in line for a windfall and turn back now would risk a huge backlash.

The letter itself is another interesting example of doublespeak. For instance it makes it clear that the current generation of policyholders have contributed nothing to the inherited estate. Really? Not a penny? Not even if they have had a pension for over 30 years?

It also suggests the second and third phases of the special bonus are some kind of loyalty payment for sticking with the fund, implying that anyone whose policy matures before then is in some way disloyal. More importantly, it ignores the issue of unfairness to those who will get only the first third of the bonus and ignores the real reason for staggering it, which must be to prevent a run on the fund.

This issue was never going to be simple. Perhaps we should be grateful to Norwich Union and the Policyholder Advocate for their perseverance.

Invest in the future

Happy birthday to the child trust fund. I remain sceptical about how the money will be used and suspect that in 15 years time it might be worth setting up as a second-hand car dealer. But I am pleased to see that an increasing number of parents are adding extra money to these funds to secure their children's futures.

Children’s Mutual said 39 per cent of its customers add an average £24 a month to their youngster's fund.

But the bad news is that 40 per cent of vouchers still lapse and the money goes into a default stakeholder fund with a 1.5 per cent annual charge. Why parents are too lazy to invest this free money for their children remains a mystery. But whatever the reason, the fact is that they deserve a good slap on the backside.

Email:t.hazell@gmail.com