Cost Transparency Initiative launches as disclosure templates revealed

The Cost Transparency Initiative (CTI) was formally launched today (7 November) on the back of work by the Financial Conduct Authority's (FCA) independent Institutional Disclosure Working Group (IDWG).

Now, the CTI will take the work further, with Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) pensions strategy executive Mel Duffield chairing the group, with further appointments to follow.

It will also run a pilot with a number of schemes and asset managers, trialling both the templates and related technical and communication materials - concluding in January 2019, with the templates then rolling out to asset managers and pensions schemes on a voluntary basis.

The group is supported by the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA), the Investment Association (IA), and the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) Advisory Board. The latter previously said it would adopt the full templates upon their release.

Duffield thanked the IDWG members for their "hard work" and said she was "delighted" to be "taking the baton forward".

"It hasn't always been possible for trustees to compare costs between different services because of a lack of clarity and consistency," she added. "By introducing a robust way to define and measure the full cost of investing, we have a golden opportunity to make a real difference across the institutional investment market."

It comes as the full IDWG report was also published by the FCA, detailing the five templates to cover the costs associated with investing in most asset classes.

These include a main account-level template covering most product types; a user template summarising the account-level data; and three sub-templates covering private equities, physical assets, and ancillary services or custody.

The group, which was chair by Chris Sier, made its recommendations to the FCA in early July but, notably, it did not suggest that the templates should be mandatory.