* * * Mutual funds are becoming the most important tool for ordinary investors to participate in the securities market, accumulate wealth and achieve long-term financial management goals with their comprehensive advantages such as professional management, diversified investment, sufficient liquidity, abundant information, wide variety selection, high convenience and relatively low cost. Because of this, in the past few years, the global mutual funds have achieved sustainable development, and the total assets under management have increased from 1 1.9 trillion US dollars in 2000 to 16.2 trillion US dollars in 2004, with an average annual growth rate of 8%; The number of funds increased from 52,000 in 2000 to 56,000 in 2004, with an average annual net increase of 960.

Generally speaking, mutual funds are playing an increasingly important role in capital formation, economic development and social welfare improvement. However, with the reform of financial system, the adjustment of regulatory rules and the intensification of market competition, the development of global mutual funds is facing more and more challenges.

Fund management issues

Because * * * and the fund industry are based on the trust relationship between fund managers and fund holders, governance issues are very important. With the rapid growth of asset scale, two major governance problems of Chase Fund have become increasingly prominent: First, fund holders lack understanding of the board of directors, which leads to the failure to effectively protect the interests of fund holders. The American model emphasizes the independent decision-making of fund holders and the role of the board of directors, but in fact, fund holders are relatively familiar with fund managers and fund families, and know little about the board of directors, especially independent directors. Due to the lack of communication with the board of directors, fund holders can't supervise the directors' behavior, so when the interests of fund holders and investment advisers are inconsistent, independent directors may turn to the investment advisers' side, thus damaging the interests of fund holders. Second, shareholders are indifferent to controlling costs and expenses. In recent years, due to the increasing enthusiasm of investors to invest in mutual funds, it is easier for fund managers in various countries to achieve the goal of expanding the scale of asset management. In this context, shareholders are not very concerned about the cost of the fund. On the one hand, because the expense ratio is relatively low, on the other hand, because of fund publicity, investors think that the successful operation of fund managers is worth spending. This concept makes the expense ratio of fund companies seem reasonable, but the actual absolute value is very high.

Effective evolution of fund ecology

To some extent, the fund ecological problem is actually a fund development model problem. At present, there are mainly three kinds of fund ecology in the world: one is the rule of law fund ecology represented by the United States; Second, the independent fund ecology represented by Britain; The third is the political capital ecology represented by Japan. In the rule of law fund ecology, the market competition is full, and fund product innovations emerge one after another. Under the unified legal constraints, the fund realizes the survival of the fittest in a fair environment, but the disadvantage is that it fluctuates too much. In the ecology of independent funds, market players pay attention to giving full play to the self-discipline function of the fund industry to maintain the long-term coordinated and stable growth of the fund industry. The disadvantage is that it is not conducive to the formation of a unified legal norm. Political fund ecological concern fund industry realizes extraordinary growth with the strong promotion of the government. Its disadvantages are insufficient market competition, insufficient fund product innovation, and easy to breed corruption and shady. Generally speaking, the three fund ecosystems have their own advantages and disadvantages. The key problem is how to construct relaxed conditions, make full use of the self-evolution ability of fund ecology and improve the efficiency of fund operation. So far, the discussion on this aspect is inconclusive.

Fairness in fund marketing

At present, fund managers rely more and more on intermediary sales funds such as banks, brokers and financial advisers, and fund investors also rely more and more on their help and advice to buy funds. But for a long time, various unfair phenomena in fund marketing have affected the enthusiasm of investors to buy funds. First, there is a double standard problem in purchasing fund fees. When buying funds, individual investors and institutional investors always buy the same products at different prices, and individual investors pay more than institutional investors. Under normal circumstances, in order to expand the scale of fund assets, fund companies will reduce or exempt commissions from institutional investors, even give a certain number of fund shares, and reach an internal agreement on illegal transactions, whether in the fundraising period or the opening period. Secondly, investors need to pay extra investment fees because of the improper behavior of brokers who get gray rewards. According to the survey, in addition to getting a fixed fund sales service fee from the fund manager, brokers also get two kinds of hidden rewards. One is the general sales reward, and the other is the "soft commission", or additional subsidies, such as the fund trading in its seats at the request of brokers. No matter what kind of gray returns, the ultimate undertakers are ordinary fund investors, because they often follow the recommendation of brokers and choose unsatisfactory fund varieties without knowing it, which will eventually affect their investment income.

Information disclosure problem

Information disclosure is a long-term problem with the development of fund industry. In the United States, especially since the "fund shady" broke out in the United States in 2003, people have paid more and more attention to the disclosure of fund information, and the regulatory authorities have therefore adopted stricter regulatory measures. According to the new regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States, fund companies are obliged to disclose the approved consulting contracts, the policies of timing trading and delaying trading, sales discounts, the background and salary policies of fund managers, and the salary structure of brokers and distributors. In Europe, the European Union has promulgated laws and regulations including information disclosure to protect investors, and expanded the requirements for information disclosure, such as fund managers submitting regular reports to competent authorities, providing other information about investment strategies, technologies and restrictions, and providing additional risk management information. With the improvement of information disclosure requirements, how to effectively control the cost of information disclosure by funds, how to monitor whether the information disclosed by funds meets the regulatory requirements, and how to quickly obtain and effectively interpret the geometrically increasing amount of information by investors will be new challenges.

There are certainly more challenges in reality than those listed above, but these four challenges are fundamental and decisive. The global fund is at an important juncture of development. The key to the healthy and sustainable development of all countries lies in whether they can take effective measures to solve the above four problems and seize important opportunities without losing time.