Personal finance: Would you buy a pension from him?

You can use anyone's face to promote your personal pensions - as long as it is not black. This, it would appear, is the view of Axa Equity & Law, a life insurer.

The company had prepared brochures for its Multipension which carried a picture of a black person wearing a shirt and tie. He was dropped and an image of a woman wearing a jacket used instead.

The company claims its decision was not prompted by any racial bias. The first picture was axed because the man did not look sober-suited enough.

Strange, then, that The Independent's personal finance section received a rash of calls from Axa staff suggesting the company caved in to suggestions from brokers that they would be unable to sell its pensions.

Apparently the decision was sanctioned by Mark Wood, chief executive at Sun Life and Provincial, the company merging with Axa Equity & Law.

By happy coincidence, this writer was a guest of Mr Wood at a dinner hosted by the Association of British Insurers.

Mr Wood cuts a very imposing figure - as imposing, in fact, as the black man whose face no longer appears on Axa's brochures.

But the question that needs to be asked is: after Axa's purging of ethnic minority faces from its publicity, would you buy a pension from this man?

- Nic Cicutti