Cost Transparency Initiative debuts new resources to push standards adoption

The CTI – a partnership initiative between the Pensions and Lifetime Standards Association (PLSA), the Local Government Pension Scheme Advisory Board (LGPSAB), and the Investment Association (IA) – first published a framework of tools and guidance for institutional investors last year.

The latest resources are a mixture of templates and guidance to adopt to CTI standards and are ready to be used for the 2020/21 reporting timeline. They include a new fiduciary management template, additional reporting field on the liability driven investments template, and additional webinar resources.

The CTI framework, which provides cost clarity for asset managers about what data to supply and allows schemes to compare costs between managers, will use the new resources to build on the success of the first year of the standard.

The £291bn LGPS incorporates the CTI framework, while all pools had onboarded CTI standard reporting as of 1 April. National Grid UK Pension Scheme, DHL Pensions, Smart Pension, Royal Mail Pension Plan and Universities Superannuation Scheme are among the schemes representing around £150bn in combined assets now also using the CTI framework.

CTI chairwoman Mel Duffield said: “With three quarters of pension schemes and consultants reporting a good level of awareness of the CTI and wide-spread take up from asset owners large and small, I am really pleased with the progress of this really important initiative to help investment managers and schemes report and understand their costs and deliver better value to savers.

“We are now entering a final push to encourage remaining schemes to adopt the templates and guidance and will continue to promote the benefits both savers and pension fund trustees’ can gain from their use. Over the rest of this year, the CTI board’s technical expert panel will continue to take forward and develop any additional resources and guidance, according to the needs of the industry.”