How to start investing in mutual funds

The sooner you start, the more time you have to benefit

By investing in a fund, you can ensure that your investments are diversified.

Investing in funds is a great way of diversifying your assets in terms of locations and sectors. Through monthly investment, you can ensure diversification across time. You can choose from more than 60 funds.

Investing is the smart thing to do, particularly for owner-customers.

As an owner-customer, you always invest at a lower cost since you can buy and sell almost all funds without fees and earn OP bonuses on 0.35% of the value of your mutual fund holdings.

Start mutual fund investing‍

Starting and stopping investing in mutual funds is easy

In investing, the most important thing is starting: the sooner you start, the more time you have to benefit. You can easily start investing on OP-mobile or the op.fi service by making a one-off investment or through monthly investment. You can change your monthly investment amount, put your investing on hold, switch to another fund or sell your fund units. If you decide to sell, the money will be transferred to your account within 1–2 banking days.

What sum should I invest?

A good rule of thumb is to invest 10% of your net earnings every month. Our funds have no minimum subscription amount, so you can start mutual fund investing, say, at ten euros a month. If monthly investing is not an option for you, you can also make one-off investments.

See how your investments can grow – try out the savings calculator

Risk and return go hand in hand

In saving and investing, risk and return always go hand in hand. The more returns you want, the more risk you’ll have to take. You can reduce risk by diversifying your investments, for example, across several mutual funds. Before you start investing, you should set aside a buffer for any unexpected expenses.

How long can you keep your money in mutual funds?

Patience pays off in mutual fund investing. Let your investments work for you: the longer you keep your money in mutual funds, the more you benefit from the compound interest effect. This means that market fluctuations affect your investments less. Withdraw money only when you really need it.

If your investment horizon is short, choose a low-risk fund.
If your investment horizon is long, you can choose a fund with a higher risk level.

Why does diversification pay off?

You have probably heard the saying that you shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket. The diversification of savings and investments represents a way of sharing risk. The goal of diversification is to ensure that the failure of one investment does not have a disproportionate impact on the investment as a whole. If a single investment fails to perform, other investments may perform better, thus balancing out the investment package.

Asset classes react differently to economic changes. A diversified investment package can therefore offer steady long-term returns because it does not depend on a single line of business or geographical region, for example.

The value of investments can fluctuate greatly without diversification, which can be a source of stress. Diversification does not remove all risks, but it is an efficient method of managing them. Three ways of diversifying fund investments:

Time diversification is easy to do through monthly investment.
Qualitative diversification means choosing funds from different sectors.
Geographical diversification means choosing funds that invest in different countries.

Saving on behalf of a child

The earlier you start, the more your investments can grow.

Monthly investment during the loan term

When you save money while repaying the loan, you’ll have a home of your own after the loan term and a sum of money saved with a good return.

Monthly investment

If you have the opportunity of investing and seek returns on your monthly investments, start investing in a fund on a monthly basis.

Saving through insurance

Prepare for future life events by starting to save through insurance. As an owner-customer, you can switch funds without fees, and your insurance assets will bring you OP bonuses.

OP Investment Partner

An OP-mobile service that helps you to invest and gives investment advice just for your needs.

Owner-customer benefits from saving and investment

As OP cooperative bank’s owner-customer, you’ll get new and comprehensive benefits from savings and investment services.

This is an advertisement. The funds are managed by OP Fund Management Company Ltd. The portfolio manager is the portfolio management company specified in the fund prospectus for OP funds. Investments always involve risks. The value of investments can rise and fall, and the investor may lose part of or all the invested funds. Past performance is no guarantee of potential future yield. The larger the fund’s expenses, the greater the impact on the expected return on the investment. Any yield also depends on taxation, which in turn varies depending on the investor’s personal circumstances and is subject to future changes. If the fund is marketed outside Finland, OP Fund Management Company Ltd may decide to end such marketing. The information presented on this page does not fully describe all the fund’s characteristics.

Before making an investment decision, take all the characteristics or objectives of the fund into consideration, as described in the fund prospectus for OP funds and other documents related to the fund. Only make your final investment decision after reading the fund prospectus for OP funds and the key investor information document and rules of the fund. These documents can be found on the web page of the respective fund. The fund prospectus and the summary of investors’ rights in mutual funds are available at op.fi in Finnish, Swedish and English.