Sweden's PPM premium pensions authority has announced that the country's delayed personal pension investment scheme will be up and running by autumn 1999.
And CSC, the computer company at the heart of the system's delay, has been retained to implement the complex transfer of assets to the personalised mutual funds.
The authority has also appointed a series of new department heads to the blighted project, with Asa Sjodin now heading up a newly created fund operation department and Bo Nyström overseeing the work of CSC.
However, controversy over the propose fee structure for the PPM has not abated, with added fuel to the debate coming through a number of foreign managers looking for business in Sweden, questioning the suggested pricing arrangements.
Swedish managers are also railing at the fact that under the system, domestic managers will be hit with extra legal reporting requirements that foreign based unit trusts do not have.
Peter Frieberg, managing director at Stockholm-based asset managers Hagstromer & Qviberg, said: Swedish managers have to report annually to clients on the levels of investments and costs involved, which in effect needs to be done daily - this does not apply to foreign managers with mutual funds based outside Sweden, so obviously there is an unfair cost discrepancy here.
Adam Lessing, executive director London based Goldman Sachs, adds: "Quality providers are unlikely to participate in a system which does not allow them to achieve adequate margins on the products provided - the current rebate is unlikely to offer such an opportunity. We would suggest a system which leaves the participant, up to the level of Skr3bn (E336m), an average management fee of not less than 0.50% per annum, on a fund with a management fee of 1.25% pa.
René Birchen, associate director at Luxmbourg based UBS Fund Services, says: "The incentive of the PPM to keep volumes low within funds is counterproductive, it serves neither investors nor the PPM. Furthermore, the level of pricew reductions and corresponding reduction of income for fund companies, make participatio above a certain volume absolutely prohibitive.""

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