Saxo Wealth commits to hand back fund commissions

Online investment platform Saxo Wealth has committed to refund clients all commission from funds as of 1 December in a bid to offer a more transparent service in the wake of the retail distribution review (RDR)

The move applies to both trail and platform commissions received from funds’ annual management charges, and head of Saxo Wealth Karsten Henriksen said the change was ‘literally offering clients an extra return on their investments’.

'We believe we are the only investment platform in the UK to offer full refunds on all commissions passed on from funds, while not charging investors a fund fee or dealing fees of any kind. In the low return environment of today’s financial markets this is literally offering clients an extra return on their investments,' Henriksen said in a statement.

The platform has no initial charges or dealing fees, but will introduce a 0.5% fee on fund holdings from 2014.

‘We know this is a bold move but we want to ensure we treat all our clients fairly in light of the new RDR rules, which is why we have made the decision to refund all commissions we earn from funds back to the clients, currently on a typical fund that is 0.75% annually. We will introduce a fund fee of 0.5% on fund holdings but this fee is waived until 2014,’ Henriksen added.