MER stands for “Management Expense Ratio”, and it’s the percentage charged to the fund’s value for managing and operating the fund. So, if your best friend George invested in a fund with a 6% return before fees over the last year, and his fund had an MER of 1%, then George’s money will have earned approximately 5%. MERs can vary widely, from less than 1% to more than 3%. Typically, a fund that requires a lot of complex management will have a higher MER, compared to a fund that is less complex.

Great news! Even though CST Spark invests in ETFs that have MERs; we only charge an overall management fee of 1.3% + tax, and the underlying ETFs have fees of approximately 0.2%.  So the overall cost is approximately 1.5% + tax.