Face-to-face advice is still available in the form of independent financial advisors

He says it is the only way of making a decent profit in today's market. In just five minutes, he is able set up a pension scheme, ready for someone to start paying in to.

"Times are changing, people want things dealt with more efficiently, more quickly," he explains.

"The internet and perhaps telephone based services will deal with things a lot more rapidly and give people a better service all round."

"It is just too expensive to run these large direct sales forces and have chaps out on the road, going around collecting relatively small premium amounts from people's houses - it is a very expensive way to operate."

The man form the Pru

The Prudential is one company with a long history of employing door-to-door sales people to sell insurance.

But it is now abolishing those jobs to concentrate its efforts on phone sales and the Internet.

Many feel the loss of the salesman is to the detriment of both individual and corporate clients.

"If you are going through technology now to a call centre where you have to press buttons to get answers, very soon small business owners get pretty disillusioned," says James Redman from the Forum of Private Business.

However, face-to-face advice is still available in the form of independent financial advisors.

In contrast their business is growing with the demise of direct sales.

But soon the government will launch low-cost stakeholder pensions that will be less profitable for companies like the Prudential.

Companies will therefore be under increasing pressure to cut costs and will be turning to technology even more than at present.