The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) working group tasked with creating a template for how funds that manage people's pensions disclose the charges that eat away at a retirement income, is plotting a more radical solution.
The institutional disclosure working group of FCA has said the eventual template it created could be split into multiple templates for different asset classes.
The working group’s role is to create a new template for fund costs and charges for institutional funds of the kind millions of British pension savers are invested in.
In an update on its website yesterday afternoon (14 December) the FCA said different members of the working group have suggested different templates.
The regulators statement said: “The framework is intended to be comprehensive. The summary disclosure is intended to help all users’ decision making and is being designed with the needs of different investor types in mind. The disclosure will be based on the underlying granular information of the costs associated with delivering the investment to the user.”
The working group is chaired by Chris Sier, who, FTAdviser previously reported, has had to apologise to the FCA, industry body the Investment Association, and the fund manager Schroders, for comments he made in an interview with a national newspaper about high fund house fees costing pension savers £35bn from their retirement pots.
In the summer the FCA published its review into asset managers and the fees they charge retail clients.
The regulator wants fund houses to be much clearer about how their costs impact people's savings and investments.
David.Thorpe@ft.com
