The Financial Supervision Bureau Launches the "Consumer Customization" Revision of Public Fund Investment Prospectus

The Financial Supervision Institute has begun a project aimed at modifying the investment prospectuses of public funds to better align with the understanding level of ordinary consumers. Due to ongoing criticism that related investment documents are lengthy and complex, making it difficult to grasp the truly important risks, the institute has decided to develop a new standard plan that distills only the core risks and is easy to present.

On May 12, 2026, the Financial Supervision Institute announced the establishment of the “Public Fund Application Document Content Improvement Working Group.” This initiative was prompted by the full loss of overseas real estate funds. At that time, some opinions pointed out that certain investors invested without fully understanding the product structure and the potential for losses. Taking this as an opportunity, there has been a growing call for investment prospectuses to no longer be lengthy formal documents, but instead to transform into practical guides that aid in actual judgment.

The blind testing results conducted by the Financial Supervision Institute from February to March this year, involving 119 ordinary consumers, also confirmed these issues. 70.6% of respondents stated they had never read an investment prospectus, and 49.6% evaluated that the prospectus alone was insufficient to understand investment risks. This is interpreted as, although the prospectus is very lengthy, its core content is difficult to grasp at a glance, and the excessive use of financial industry jargon makes it hard for ordinary investors to use effectively.

Accordingly, the institute plans to develop a simplified “Core Risk Standard Plan for Funds” designed to reduce consumer burden. The concept is: on the first page of a simplified investment prospectus, list up to four core risks, such as principal loss risk; replace difficult expressions with familiar language; and actively utilize charts and other visual materials. The goal is to compress and place the most critical information—such as the potential for loss and structural features—at the front of the document, representing an attempt to shift the information delivery method toward a consumer-centric approach.

This working group will include members from the Financial Supervision Institute, the Financial Investment Association, and the asset management industry. The authorities plan to further gather opinions from consumer protection groups and promote revisions to the disclosure format. As the demand for strengthening the obligation to explain during the sale of financial products continues to rise, this initiative may develop toward enhancing trust in the public fund market. However, some also believe that to achieve real results, efforts should not stop at formatting changes alone; improvements are also needed in the explanation methods during the sales phase and in investor education.