Finansinspektionen's CEO Erik Thedéen has advice for all fund customers.

He points out that over time most funds move towards the average, ie the index, and that the fee is the most important factor.

- I think the very best advice for most customers is very simple products at very low fees.

But typically, the industry tends to go in the other direction.

They are moving towards more complex products, they are moving towards more expensive products.

Because this is where they make money, says Erik Thedéen.

"Not much left"

Erik Thedéen reminds that research shows that "extremely few funds" make money for their savers in so-called active management, where the fund company's managers try to beat the average stock market for a higher fee.

- Therefore, the strong recommendation for small savers is to choose simple index funds, simply because it is not possible to lead in proof that you can make money from active management in most cases, says Erik Thedéen.

Finansinspektionen's Director General points out that today it is even more important than ten years ago to invest in low fees.

The reason is that the so-called real interest rates are now so low.

- The expected return on an equity portfolio over a long period of time is now perhaps two, three, four percent and two percent in fee, well then there is not much left, he says.

"Do not accept high fees"

According to the unit-linked insurance company AMF's annual fee report, the average fee for equity funds in 2019 was 1.55 percent.

The difference for fund savers between the most expensive and cheapest equity funds is large.

Today, there are just over 50 equity funds that have a fee of more than 3 percent.

About ten funds have fees of over five percent, including performance-based fees.

Among the cheapest equity funds are about 30, all of which cost less than 0.3 percent in fees.

Most of them are so-called index funds.

- I want to sharpen the argument that one should not accept high fees unless there are very, very strong reasons for it.

But it is difficult to find it in normal cases, says Erik Thedéen.