Investor Economics Insight January 2021

The Canadian Investment Funds Industry Post-pandemic

Every new year usually brings its own challenges—and sometimes opportunities, too, but 2020 will go down in history in a category of its own.

Amid a rotating cast of interlocking factors, including rapidly changing distribution channel paradigms; rampant product development; pricing pressures; regulatory change; the emergence of new areas that require attention (think ESG investing); and an ever-evolving economic reality, fund companies continue to verify an old adage, one always present in our Household Balance Sheet Report: the only constant seems to be change. And change, from time to time, is written with capital C.

This issue of Insight provides an analysis and an outlook of the Canadian investment funds industry, looking at recent developments both in the context of a longer historic arc and of an increasingly globalized business. Key product, distribution, pricing and sales trends are reviewed, paying special attention to specific issues either brought about or accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.