SCM Private is to launch an online calculator aimed at showing investors the ‘true’ cost of their investments as part of the next phase of its True and Fair campaign.
The tool, to be formally launched next month, is based on a similar web calculator put together by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority in the US. It will allow investors to see the full effects of charges on their investments expressed as a monetary amount, instead of a percentage.
Alan Miller, SCM co-founder and former New Star chief investment officer, said: “Our calculator will be more accurate and more meaningful than the current system.
“Our research shows that 92 per cent of the public wanted to know in one number, in pounds, how much their investments will cost.
“We want to re-establish the UK as the gold standard for transparency. The US has made this calculator work [and] there is no reason why UK savers should be treated as second class citizens compared to the US.”
SCM co-founder Gina Miller said the calculator had been sent round to some of the UK’s biggest fund managers for feedback ahead of the launch.
The move comes as SCM marked one year since it launched its True and Fair campaign for full disclosure of fund costs, including transaction costs.
In an event hosted by Treasury Select Committee member Mark Garnier at the Houses of Parliament, Ms Miller said the campaign would be “redoubling” its efforts in 2013 in a bid to force fund managers into greater disclosure.
The launch of the calculator looks set to coincide with the IMA’s deadline for fund managers to sign up for its own voluntary disclosure code next month.
