Big money managers in China cut fees on thousands of mutual fund products on Monday, in a swift reaction to a government drive to reduce rates across the country’s fast-evolving financial services sector.

Fund houses were responding to a weekend statement from the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), which pledged to “guide the mutual fund industry to start fee-charging reform in a steady and orderly manner, and support the industry to adjust funds’ fee ratios reasonably”.

E Fund, the mainland’s largest mutual fund house by size, said it had cut the management fees for its 74 equity-focused funds to 1.2 per cent of fund assets from a previous 1.5 per cent, to “lower the wealth management cost of investors”. Custodian fees charged on a separate batch of 89 funds would be capped at 0.2 per cent of fund assets, it added.