The industry has a very long way to go to improve fund fee transparency with investors remaining baffled when it comes to understanding fees, delegates heard during a lively panel debate on fund fee transparency at the Morningstar Investment Conference 2016 in London today. 

There was agreement among the three investment experts - including ex-Investment Association chief executive Daniel Godfrey, Hermes chief executive Saker Nusseibeh and Gina Miller, a founder of wealth manager SCM Private that the fund industry has major problems when it comes to making all the fees that apply to fund investment clear to investors.

The panellists were unanimous that the present situation of over complexity and lack of comparability between fund charges was not acceptable and had to change. The array of different fees was often bewildering to investors, said panellists, with many fund fees and charges opaque.

Panel chair Jackie Beard, director of manager research services, EMEA, Morningstar, said the issue was of national importance, pointing out that Prime Minister David Cameron himself had recently raised the complexity of fund charges as one reason why investors were being put off investing.

Gina Miller, founding partner at SCM Private, said there was a huge amount still to be done to help advisers and investors and she said the fund industry was letting down investors by making charges too complex. She said it was essential that advisers understood all the charges so they could make fair comparisons for their clients before making recommendations.

She called for a single, mandated figure providing "one number" - a figure covering all costs of fund ownership so that true comparisons could be made. 

She said: "I'm very disappointed the FCA says clear charges don't have to be mandateed."

Jackie Beard said: "We all believe we need comparaiblity of costs. We need one single figure covering all the costs."

Saker Nusseibeh, of Hermes Investment Management, said there was an overwhelming need to "simplify" charges for investors adding that even industry experts struggled at times to understand all the charges attached to funds.

Mr Nusseibeh added that there were other issues holding back investors and one was the focus still on star managers, instead of focusing on long term value and decent outcomes for investors. There was too much reliance on "looking for the next Neil Woodford," he said. 

Ms Miller added that Woodford funds had been very successful but she was disappointed by recent advertising for one Woodford fund which focused on the low fund chargee but didn't make clear the additional platform charge. This illustrated many of the issues around lack of clarity on fund ownership costs, she said.

Turning to issues of trust between the fund management sector and advisers, Mr Godfrey said that trust should not be the objective but rather "continually doing the right thing" which would help build trust over the long term.

The lively panel debate was a key part of the second day of the Morningstar Investment Conference in London attended by hundreds of financial planners and financial advisers today. To start the debate Jackie Beard set the scene with some relevant studies that highlight the impact of fees on outcomes for investors.