BlackRock joins calls for 'bare' share classes

BlackRock has joined a growing list of fund groups to reject calls for a ‘super clean' share class, instead favouring a single stripped-down class to avoid adviser confusion.

The Financial Conduct Authority's (FCA's) platform paper released on Friday banned cash rebates and advocated a wholesale move towards unbundled pricing by 2016. But the paper, and calls from Skandia and Standard Life for individual share classes based on platform size, risks creating an "alphabet soup" of share classes, head of UK retail Tony Stenning (pictured) said. "We need to be conscious of the potential confusion," he said. He supported the move to a "bare" share class, first mooted in an IFAonline column by platform consultancy Altus. The share class, priced at about 50b...