When the patent of Vanguard on ETF share classes expired on May 16, 2023, market observers and participants expected a significant number of new ETFs which are actual share classes of existing mutual funds since the promoters of active managed mutual funds may want to attract investors who are only using ETFs in their portfolios. Opposite to this expectation, the promoters of mutual funds in Europe have been rather shy in using this new feature to enhance their fund distribution strategies. Nevertheless, the use cases and advantages for ETF share classes are still valid and a further increase of the

Despite the growth of the European ETF industry, there is one question which drives the discussions of market observers. Is there a consolidation ahead in the European ETF industry? This question seems to be a bit odd given the growth in assets under management and the overall level of estimated net inflows over the year 2024, as well as the previous years. On the other hand, the estimated net inflows were quite concentrated. This means that only a limited number of ETFs, and as a result a small number of promoters, were able to gather a significant share of these

The assets under management in the European ETF industry are highly concentrated at the classification level. Even as one would expect that the AUM are concentrated at the classification level since this reflects the asset allocation views of the investors—which are in general rather streamlined than widely diverging—the level of concentration might be surprising. ETFs classified as Equity U.S. held 26.83% of the overall assets under management at the end of December 2024. The second largest classification, Equity Global, held 18.09% of the overall AUM and Equity Emerging Markets Global held 4.26%. Given the fact that Equity U.S. and Equity

Investors, market observers, and regulators always raise questions about the competitiveness of the European ETF industry since assets under management seem to be concentrated among a few ETF promoters. Generally speaking, I would agree with the statement that one needs to be concerned if a few players are dominating a market, but not when it comes to the European ETF industry. Graph 1 shows that the European ETF industry is highly concentrated at the promoter level since the 10-top promoters in Europe held between 93.52% (June 30, 2023) and 95.06% (December 31, 2024) of the overall assets under management in

February 2025 was another month with strong inflows (+€33.8 bn) for the European ETF industry. These flows were way above the rolling 12-month average (€23.5 bn) and might be an indicator that the European ETF industry is set to continue to grow above average over the course of 2025. In fact, if the European ETF industry is able to maintain net inflows at the same level for January and February for the rest of the year, it would hit an all-time high for annual inflows on a totally different level than before. The inflows in the European ETF industry for

February 2025 was another month with strong inflows for the European ETF industry. These inflows occurred in a volatile market environment in which investors around the globe acted nervous over any political and economic news. Investor sentiment was impacted by the discussions around tariffs by the U.S. president and potential tit-for-tat reactions from the markets which are the targets of the new tariffs. That said, the tariffs are seen as a kind of trade war between the U.S. and the rest of the world by some market observers. When it comes to this, investors were concerned about a political shift

Despite the fact that media coverage around sustainability in general has gone further down over the course of 2024, it is important to have a look at the estimated net flows in the European ETF industry by SFDR article to determine if investors have returned to sustainable investment strategies or if they still prefer ETFs without any sustainability related screening criteria. As for the year 2023, ETFs classified as article 6 products (+€214.1 bn) enjoyed the highest inflows over the course of 2024, followed by ETFs classified under article 8 of the SFDR (+€43.3 bn). Conversely, ETFs classified under article

2024 was another year with strong inflows for the European ETF industry. In fact, the inflows marked a new all-time high for monthly inflows into ETFs in Europe. These inflows occurred in a mainly positive market environment. While most equity markets were on the rise despite the high valuations of the market leaders over the course of the month, some bond segments faced the impacts from rising rates as yield curves have somewhat started to normalize. This might also be the reason why investors are somewhat nervous and reacting quickly on any news that may impact the current market environment

The European ETF industry enjoyed record inflows (+€256.4 bn) over the course of 2024. These inflows were way above the inflows of the former record year 2021, when ETFs enjoyed estimated year-to-date net flows of €161.4 bn. Equities (+€198.5 bn) were the best-selling asset type for the year. The inflows into equity ETFs must be seen in comparison to the outflows from actively managed mutual funds (-€62.2 bn). This means that European investors seem to prefer ETFs over mutual funds when it comes to equity investments. Bonds (+€295.9 bn) were the best-selling asset type in the European fund industry. As

A lot has been written about actively managed ETFs. Indeed, one could say that these products made headlines all year round as market observers expected that active ETFs will become the next big thing in the European ETF industry. For me this means one should take a look at the fund flows and assets under management to see if the growth of these products could keep up with the high expectations raised by all the headlines. First of all, it needs to be made clear that the segment of active ETFs is quite small since these products held only €56.2

The European fund industry enjoyed inflows over the course of December 2024. These inflows occurred in a mainly positive market environment. While most equity markets were on the rise despite the high valuations of the market leaders over the course of the month, some bond segments faced the impacts from rising rates as yield curves have somewhat started to normalize. This might also be the reason why investors are somewhat nervous and reacting quickly on any news that may impact the current market environment negatively. That said, the election of Donald Trump as the next U.S. president had a positive

The European fund industry enjoyed inflows of €620.2 bn over the course of 2024. That said, there are two main trends visible in the fund flows numbers which may be because most of the asset managers in Europe are not happy with their inflows over the course of the year. Firstly, there was a clear trend in the direction of ETFs, as European investors invested €256.4 bn in these products over the course of the year. Secondly, European investors bought further into money market funds (+€253.0 bn). This trend was driven by the still inverted yield curves in the major