Web Changes Access to Fund Data

For many mutual fund investors, the Era of the Internet isn’t some vision of the future. It is already happening, and fast.

Fund shareholders in rapidly rising numbers are hooking up to the Net as a way to research and track funds, check their accounts and even buy or redeem fund shares.

In January, 41.5% of the transactions in Charles Schwab’s OneSource fund supermarket were conducted on the World Wide Web, according to Schwab spokesman Dan Hubbard. That’s up from about 29% six months before.

At the Vanguard Group, one of largest fund families, spokesman Brian Mattes says about 35% of all contacts with present and prospective investors occur on the Web, compared with about 10% four or five years ago.

“I’m an Internet-based client of Vanguard’s,” says John Brennan, who is also the firm’s chairman and chief executive. “When I need to get information about my account, I can do so with the click of a mouse.”

Real-time account statements, available 24 hours a day, make a lot more sense than documents mailed every quarter, which are in many ways outdated before they arrive.

Fund companies are happy with all this too. An investor’s request for prospectuses and other information, which used to cost several dollars to process by mail, can now be answered for pennies on a fund family’s Web site.

But the Net has its limitations.

“I doubt that a Web site will ever completely replace people,” Brennan said. “I suspect more shareholders will look to Web sites for routine matters and to informed personnel for more complicated matters.”