Nordnet granted FSA permit for fund company
Nordic online bank and trading platform Nordnet has received its permit from the Swedish FSA to run its own mutual fund company. The process took six months, during which the firm has been building up its organization.
In connection with being granted a company permit, Nordnet Fonder also received a separate FSA permit for 12 of its mutual funds, the firm says in a statement.
The Nordic fund and savings platform first communicated its intent to launch a fund business in September 2021, as reported by AMWatch. Funds are a priority area for the firm, which wanted more control.
“Now we want to have greater control over the whole value chain and greater ability to launch more interesting products with a competitive price going forward,” CEO Lars-Åke Norling told AMWatch at the time.
Norling now says in the company statement that the application process for a permit has gone entirely according to plan and that the dialog with the FSA has been positive.
“We’ve spent the past six months building an organization that can provide exciting and value-for-money funds for Nordic savers and we now look forward to getting going. An own fund business gives us far better control and flexibility over our fund operations,” he says.
The 12 funds that have received an FSA permit are multi-asset fund-of-funds, splitting investments between equities and bonds and rebalancing continuously. Three funds per Nordic market where Nordnet operates Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway will be launched in domestic currencies.
Going forward, the plan is for Nordnet to take over the management of the four Nordic index funds and a multi-asset fund currently managed by Öhman Fonder.
“Having our own fund company means we can be faster and meet market demand quicker when it comes to launching new products. We’ll start with three allocation funds per market and these funds will make up the building blocks of an automated savings service that we plan to present in the very near future,” Gabrielle Hagman, head of funds at Nordnet, says in the statement.
The fund company’s CEO is Carl Fredrik Lagerholm, formerly the head of Danske Bank’s fund business and previously the head of fund operations at Nordea. Its board also boasts several well-known names in the pensions and mutual funds industry.
