Investment funds are one of the branches of the financial sector with the brightest future, Stane Valant, head of the association of asset management firms, told a two-day conference of the association on Thursday.
Valant added that there are many opportunities for investment in funds. However, he stressed in Portoroz that competition from foreign funds also means that domestic funds have to be ever more professional.
According to Valant, 100 investment funds currently vie for savers in Slovenia, with the recently passed tax legislation also making them even more alluring.
Tomaz Kosak from the Bank of Slovenia meanwhile presented the savings structure in Slovenia, the country's financial environment and capital assets.
He said that the structure of financial markets is gradually changing, with the banking sector in decline and non-financial sectors, such as real estate, on the rise.
Household bank savings accounts currently account for 40.1% of GDP, with the rest in investment funds, investment companies, insurance and retirement funds, Kosak added.
The corporate sector also keeps the bulk of its funds in the banks (57.7% of GDP), with investments into domestic alternatives also stable at 46% of GDP. However, investments abroad are surging, currently amounting to 9.7% on GDP.
Amounts paid into foreign investment funds that are marketed in Slovenia amounted to SIT 1.4bn/EUR 5.84m so far this year and are slowly edging closer to payments into domestic funds (SIT 3bn/12.52m), which are on the decline.
Kosak also said that people seem to be much more interested in buying real estate, with purchases growing by 34% growth this year, which has also sent real-estate prices up.
The two-day conference was focusing on the position of investment funds in the financial sector, the specifics of marketing, tax environment and the future of Slovenian capital markets.
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