In the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, this type of fee scheme known as "kickbacks" is now banned.

In Norway, Finanstilsynet last year pressured Norwegian finance companies to drop kickbacks by threatening a total ban.

A survey from last autumn shows that most fund companies have now abolished the kickback system and instead charge customers directly.

The reason is that the European Commission in 2018 introduced tougher rules for the financial market, called Midfid ll.

They tighten the rules for so-called third-party compensation, or kickbacks, where a mediator of financial services receives compensation from others than the customer.

The customer risks a worse product

According to Jorge Jensen, there were great risks with the old system.

He believes that the customer can get a worse product because the fund intermediary normally receives half of the fund fee in return from the fund company.

- The customer risks receiving an offer for the product on which the distributor makes the most money.

That is why kickback in very many sectors is illegal, says Jorge Jensen at the Consumer Council.

The state-funded organization, together with the authority Finanstilsynet, has for several years tried to get the industry to stop kickbacking.

Nordnet hears those who have stopped kickbacks in Norway, and instead returns the fee to the customer:

- In Norway, we charge the customer a platform fee when investing in funds.

In addition, the customer also pays a management fee to the fund company.

In cases where we receive a distribution fee from the fund company, we refund it to our customers, writes Nordnet's CEO, Lars-Åke Norling, to SVT.

Received a better range of cheap funds

Jorge Jensen also points out that warnings from the financial industry that stricter regulation would lead to deterioration have not occurred.

- It has neither reduced nor worsened the supply of funds to consumers, on the contrary.

It has become a better offer because we have received several cheap funds, says Jorge Jensen.

According to Jorge Jensen, it is extra problematic with kickbacks in the Nordic region because most new customers who buy funds do the work themselves via, for example, mobile phones.

In addition, the brokerage of funds contributes less and less, according to Jorge Jensen.

- The legitimacy of kickbacks is that they offer advice to the customer.

Now that the modern customer is increasingly using traditional advice, the legitimacy of kickbacks is also much less, he says.