The best thing that has happened to the banks in modern times may have happened in April 1984. That was when the government connected the banks and the people's home with a single approach: the Allemansfonderna.

Savings needed to increase.

The bourgeois government had introduced tax-subsidized savings, so-called Skattespar, but it was only when the Social Democrats took it further and named it Allemanssparande and Allemansfonder 1984 that fund savings became widespread in the people's home.

In 1990, there were 1.7 million accounts for public funds.

5,400 billion in funds

Then the government began to cut tax subsidies, but equity funds had become a matter of course and savers hung in anyway.

In 1998, the special legislation on public funds was completely abolished.

But fund savings only increased.

Pension savings in funds had also gained momentum.

So the state pushed even more money into the banks through the premium pension system, where Swedes must invest part of their state pension in funds.

The Swedes' total fund assets are now SEK 5,400 billion.

That is more than Sweden's GDP.

Last year alone, Swedes saved 67 new billion in equity funds.

Three quarters went to actively managed funds with a higher fee.

Savers happily pay the fees

The cheaper index funds have admittedly increased in the last ten years, but the Swedes still do not have even a fifth of the total fund assets there.

We pay happily then.

Of course, it has helped that two of the last three decades have been fantastic stock market decades.

Who cares when the money is still growing in the bank?

But if the fund savers have become rich, there is nothing against the banks.

Breathtakingly rich, it looks like digging around a bit in their own numbers.

Nordea has moved to Finland, which makes fund gains difficult to find, but all three major banks that remain in Sweden have reported until 2019.

Since 2015 managed ...

  • Handelsbanken increase its profits in the fund company from SEK 330 million to SEK 1.2 billion.

  • SEB increase the profit in the fund company from 700 million to 1.2 billion

  • Swedbank Robur increase profits from 1.2 to 1.8 billion.

Four billion to the owners

Together, these three fund companies sent SEK 4 billion in group contributions in 2019 to their owners, the banks.

Swedbank Robur has had a return on equity of a bizarre 581 percent in 2019.

In the same year, the average return on equity funds in Sweden was a more modest 29 percent according to Fondbolagens Förening.

SEB has also reported 2020: continued increased profit, and an extra share dividend to the bank of 400 million.

The figures are certainly not fully accurate.

There may be personnel costs and selling costs for the funds that are taken elsewhere in the banks.

Yet.

It is mostly about the fact that the capital in the funds has simply grown.

Do not incur high costs

And a plus for the banks is that the fund operations are hardly burdened with particularly high costs for what the banks now otherwise spend billions and thousands of annual jobs on, namely to keep money laundering away.

Fund saving is, I guess, not the best choice of method for money laundering, but still more something for "everyone".

And the largest fund still bears this name: Swedbank Robur Allemansfond Komplett.

The fee is as much as 1.25 percent, but it is still interesting that the largest holding is Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, the world's largest semiconductor manufacturer.

It should be the surest stock market winner in the world in the future, now that factories are at a standstill due to semiconductor shortages.