The £960m (€1.6bn) Royal County of Berkshire pension scheme has asked its custodian, HSBC Global Investor Services, to measure the transaction costs incurred by its investment managers, a trend that is increasingly gaining importance among pension funds.

HSBC has been Berkshire's custodian for about three years. The fund opted to look at transaction costs as part of best practise recommendations by Paul Myners, the head of a UK Treasury review of institutional investment, made to the investment industry last year. Myners demanded greater clarity concerning the market impact of trading, as well as commissions.