Active vs. passive funds

Bank solutions typically offer two forms of securities saving:

Active funds

• Active funds try to achieve a higher return than their benchmark. For this purpose, a fund manager is employed who analyzes the securities comprised in the index and actively influences their weighting.

• Active funds are suitable for all those who want to place their trust in a particular fund management. You are prepared to accept higher costs for this.

Passive funds

• A passive securities investment is realized with index investments (ETF or index funds). These index funds represent the underlying index as accurately as possible. Since those index investments avoid high research costs, their fees are significantly lower.

• Passive investing is suitable for those who want to invest broadly diversified and cost-effective in an entire market with only one transaction.

Most of the active funds fail to achieve a higher return than their benchmark over a longer period and after deducting all costs. Since active fund managers have often been unable to keep their promises, passive, low-cost index investments have received steady inflows in recent years. Particularly in the third pillar, even small savings lead to great added value due to the long investment horizon and the compound interest effect.