Most private investors just accept the hidden fees, assuming they are an untouchable part of the entire investment contract. Indeed, the tools to control and monitor are mainly available to sophisticated institutional investors.
But we believe an investor can and should negotiate those fees. In our experience, the top 3 lines that require investor attention are:
1) The investment management fee for UCITS funds
2) Forex fee - > a progressive ladder can be replaced by
3) Fee-in-fee structure
For the investment management fee, one can negotiate an upgrade in share class if certain conditions are met even without hitting the minimum required amount.
For the Forex fee, we saw several examples where banks agreed to bypass an 'expensive' part of the FX fee ladder (typically for the amount < 100k-250k) and only stick to the min fee regardless of the amount.
Lastly, for the fee-in-fee structure, pay attention to the individual components of the discretionary mandates run by the bank (typically at an all-in fee). For example, we observed many cases where banks put their own products into a discretionary run portfolio. By this virtue, they effectively impose double tariffs and set a famous fee-in-fee structure.
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