Researcher now selling funds online

FundSource Research has moved into the business of selling managed funds to the public through its website.

Tuesday, December 4th 2001, 9:08AM

The researcher started offering investment statements online last month at the same time it announced its Fund Manager of the Year Awards which were won by Bank of New Zealand Investment Management.

FundSource executive chairman David van Schaardenburg says the move is "experimental".

He says the company is still feeling its way with online offerings and there are a number of questions which remain unanswered such as: Is the New Zealand market big enough for an such a service?

He says FundSource believes investors should seek advice, however there is a do-it-yourself part of the market that still needs to be serviced.

The company originally looked at offering an online brokerage service about a year ago when Xtra kicked off its money channel.

FundSource took exclusive sponsorship of the investment section of the money channel and proposed doing a deal with 12 fund managers where they paid to be investment partners. As partners they would be allowed to sell their funds online through FundSource.

While managers would pay to be involved with the site they would also have to pay FundSource a trail fee.

The proposal got a frosty response from managers as the trail commission level was generally higher than what they paid advisers, plus they had to pay to be involved in the offering.

Also Xtra had some problems with the idea.

While the investment partner part of the idea has been canned FundSource is now offering investment statements for funds it has given either a four a five star rating to..

Investors get free entry into the funds and the managers pay FundSource a regular trail commission.

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