Swedish government rejects audit office’s PPM costs proposal

The Swedish government has rejected a recommendation made by the country’s National Audit Office (NAO) calling for greater cost transparency on the Premium Pension System’s (PPM) funds marketplace.

In its response to the report, the government partly turned down putting the recommendations into action because a reform process was already under way for the PPM, but also expressed disagreement with some of the office’s conclusions.

The NAO advised in its report, released a month ago, that the Swedish Pensions Agency, which runs the PPM, should be required to carry out regular evaluations of the cost-effectiveness of the funds marketplace. It also called for higher cost transparency demands on providers wanting to market funds on the PPM platform.

The government said in a statement: “The government believes that, at present, it is not appropriate to investigate the possibility of imposing higher requirements on fund companies that want to work on the funds marketplace to report all costs.

“Nor does the government consider it appropriate to instruct the Swedish Pensions Agency to carry out regular evaluations of the cost-effectiveness of the fund market.”

Separately, the agency has now approved 11 more funds for inclusion in the funds’ marketplace, under the stricter authorisation process it has been running since late last year.

Four of these funds are run by Carnegie Fonder and seven by Catella Fondförvaltning.