Recently, I came across an article stating that the ETF market in Korea has exceeded 100 trillion won. It’s incredible to see how the market has significantly grown, encompassing various types of ETFs, including index, international, and active ETFs. As a consumer, this growth is exciting, especially given the fierce competition among asset management companies.

​https://n.news.naver.com/mnews/article/028/0002657202?sid=101

However, our ultimate goal is retirement planning, and the investment strategies we are familiar with mainly involve passive strategies in the U.S. market ETFs. Therefore, today, I want to compare the management fees of domestically listed international ETFs in Korea. While fees like expense ratios are readily available on platforms like Naver Finance, there are other undisclosed costs involved. I initially planned to gather data using Excel and Word to understand these additional costs better. However, I came across a well-organized article in the Sisa Journal that provided a comprehensive breakdown, making my data compilation efforts redundant.

According to this article, when considering all undisclosed costs, ACE emerged as the most cost-effective S&P500 ETF. For NASDAQ100, KBSTAR appeared to be the most economical choice. Timefolio, with its active nature, presents challenges when it comes to direct fee comparisons.

For the S&P 500, it was noted that NH Asset Management had a relatively high proportion of other expenses.

“These other expenses refer to costs that are incurred regularly and recurrently within the investment trust, excluding securities trading expenses and financial expenses. They include custody and agency fees, accounting and audit fees, bond and fund valuation fees, index usage fees, legal advisory fees, real estate appraisal fees, among others. These expenses are estimated based on the previous fiscal year if the accounting period has ended, and as an estimated figure for the current accounting period if the accounting period hasn’t concluded.

Furthermore, the highest estimated ratio of other expenses among the set types of income securities that haven’t been set up as of the date of preparation is used. Therefore, actual costs may differ.”

In conclusion, if you plan to invest in pension funds or IRP accounts, it seems advantageous to choose the option with the lowest total fee rate, whether it’s S&P500 or Nasdaq100. As mentioned earlier, from a fee perspective, ACE S&P500 and KBSTAR US NASDAQ100 appear to be good choices. These ETFs receive dividends, and if you invest through a pension savings account, they will also be subject to deferred taxation. Personally, I invest in KODEX TR because I find reinvesting dividends to be less cumbersome.