Switzerland – Italy: fund market in 5 questions

An analysis by Fida about the fund market in Switzerland and in Italy, through five main questions

1 – How many?
The size of the offering is similar: on 36,000 products sold in the Swiss Confederation, 30,000 are distributed in Italy.
Greater is also the number of funds, while the number of company is almost identical.
Behind these numbers lies the difference in terms of regulatory approval process: while it's specifically based on the individual share class along the peninsula, in Switzerland concerns the entire fund.

2 – Where do they invest?
According to FIDA classification, the products offered to the Swiss investors are characterized by greater diversification realized directly through a different investment style: in fact, the lower weight of equity and bond based instruments is counterbalanced by the number of absolute return and diversified products. This shows how the range of products in which asset allocation decisions tend to be delegated to the asset manager is more relevant in Switzerland than in Italy.

3 – Are they the same funds?
With a closer glance at FIDA database,  almost 18,000 funds are available for distribution in both countries, while 18,000 and 12,600 are those sold exclusively in Switzerland and Italy respectively; among them there are types of funds that refer to the individual national regulators such as pension and insurance funds on the Italian market.
Most of the products that are overlapping in the two countries are those under Luxembourg law, while remain exclusively on their national markets the funds regulated by the Italian law and the Swiss law.

4 – Products sold in Italy and in Switzerland: how well do they perform?
On all time horizons, products distributed in the Helvetic country show higher numbers in terms of return and volatility. This analysis supports the evidence about the type of risk classes offered in Switzerland.

5 – What is the number of domestic funds and which ones are foreign?
The countries of registration of the products sold in Italy and Switzerland are distributed in a similar manner with a greater presence of domestic instruments in Italy due to insurance funds.