Financial Times: MiFID rules highlight the costs of investing

23 May 2019

Wealth managers are now required to produce annual fee statements.

This means that for the first time customers will be given an annual rundown of all charges incurred in 2018, in pounds and pence, including advice and investment fees and previously hidden trading charges too. The new statements will cover the 2018 calendar year, but there is no firm deadline for statements to be sent out, resulting in a patchwork of experience for customers across different companies. Wealth managers such as Rathbone Brothers and St James’s Place have already sent their new, transparent fee documents to customers. Rathbones says it has sent out new valuation packs to customers in January, covering the year to the end of December.

Companies have struggled to gather consistent and reliable data on things such as the costs incurred when investments are bought and sold, resulting in potential confusion to customers, according to companies including AJ Bell. Asset managers have had to provide estimates of previously hidden trading costs since the start of last year, and must now reveal the actual costs incurred when they have traded the underlying stocks and shares in investors’ funds.

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