The European Union's MiFID-II directive comes into force in less than six months, and will require brokers to set a separate price for investment research they provide to fund managers, rather than bundle in the cost with trading services. That leaves asset managers with a choice of having to pass the new charges on to clients or not.

"Research costs will be paid by the business and not by MiFID-II client accounts," JP Morgan Asset Management, which had$1.9 trillion in assets at the end of June, said in statement.

A number of other asset managers, including Vanguard, Jupiter (>> Jupiter Fund Management), M&G (>> Prudential) and Aberdeen (>> Aberdeen Asset Management) have also said they will pay research costs themselves.

Others, including hedge fund Man Group's (>> Man Group PLC) stockpicking unit GLG, Janus Henderson (>> Janus Henderson Group PLC) and Schroders (>> Schroders), said they plan to pass research costs on to clients.

A JP Morgan Asset Management spokeswoman declined to give an estimate of how much its research costs will be.

(Editing by Rachel Armstrong)

By Carolyn Cohn and Helen Reid