Swedish fund companies will pay for external research

With the implementation of the Mifid II Directive, all companies providing savings products must report all costs and charges for the products in a similar manner across Europe. One consequence of the new regulation is the unbundling of trading costs along with research costs. Throughout the autumn, a range of international fund groups has announced that they will pay for external research when Mifid II is finally introduced.

The unbundling of costs for research and trading was implemented in Sweden a couple of years ago, but when FBNW asked Swedish fund groups earlier this autumn whether they would pay for external research themselves they had either not decided or said they would continue to take the costs in individual funds. However, over the past week that sentiment seems to have changed. Last week, Nordea Asset Management announced that they would pay for external research themselves starting from next year and in a press release published today, Liza Jonson, CEO at Swedbank Robur, said: “For us, it is an