The U.S. mutual fund industry’s total cost for compliance with new rules designed to prevent market timing abuses, will be US$617.5 million over the next three years, according to estimates from research and consulting firm TowerGroup.

The new rules require mutual fund boards to set a redemption fee policy. They also direct intermediaries and funds to work together to make shareholder transaction activity in omnibus accounts available for fund oversight.

TowerGroup notes that since the rule has expanded the traditional definition of intermediaries, fund distributors will need to perform extensive data analysis to find intermediaries and then effectively manage the process of signing agreements with each of them. Omnibus accounts constitute 35% of the mutual fund market, representing 145 million underlying shareholder accounts held at intermediaries.

The cost for funds and intermediaries to comply with will affect all shareholders, it notes, given that the regulation applies to almost all long-term funds.

Since 2003, investment firms have paid fines and restitution of approximately US$2.3 billion as a result of late trading and market timing.

TowerGroup says it expects an active compliance oversight of the rule by investment managers to prevent any future financial and reputational risk.