IMA blog: Do fund costs have to be so complicated?

The Investment Management Association (IMA)'s chief executive Daniel Godfrey calls on the fund management industry to improve the way it explains fund costs and charges to consumers.

The search for a way to explain fund costs and their impact on performance in a way that actually helps consumers, rather than leaving them scratching their heads, may not have cost as much blood as the search for the Holy Grail, but it probably has cost as much in treasure and generated many times as much heat as light. The reason we have failed so far is that as 'experts' we have been asking too much of a solution. We want it to be accurate to ten decimal places, personalised to every investor, to work equally well for a unit holder as for a prospective investor, to encompass the known...