Fitz Partners claimed its study is the first cross-border fund fees benchmarks based over 14,000 consistent fee calculations at share class level - including clean share classes developed by fund houses.
Fitz expects fund fee averages to be used by fund promoters and advisers in order to benchmark individual funds on cost.
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It found retail shares in the equities sector had a 1.52% average management fee, compared with 0.85% for clean shares in the equities sector (see table below).
Clean shares in the bonds sector had the lowest average with 0.55% and retail shares in the bonds sector were at 0.98%.
Clean bonds had the lowest total expense ratio at 0.78%, with retail bonds at 1.24%, clean equities at 1.13% and retail equities at 1.86%.


    



Hugues Gillibert, chief executive, said: "We are very pleased to be able to provide the industry with these fees benchmarks.
"This will allow product development teams and advisers to make an educated judgment on the relative value of a fund compare to its peers."
The benchmarks have been based on Fitz's proprietary fee calculations based on audited financial accounts and are presented by type of shares as well as by sectors and asset classes.
In the retail space, active funds investing in equities remain the most expensive and funds investing in cash the cheapest.
Across all asset classes, clean shares or RDR compliant shares' total expense ratios are positioned in-between the retail and institutional total fee levels, but the difference in the ratio between clean and retail shares widely depends on the type of assets.
Mr Gillibert said: "Stripping distribution fees out of the fee structure as a result of RDR has certainly pushed the overall fund expenses down but it is remarkable that the drop is not even across all asset classes.
"For some funds the reduction is more than enough to compensate for any external new fees that will be paid directly by an investor, for others that gap will be much tighter."