(27)In order to provide legal certainty concerning the application of new rules for the reception or payment of inducements, in particular with respect to investment firms providing investment advice on an independent basis or portfolio management services, further clarifications in relation to the payment or reception of research should be provided. In particular, where research is not paid directly by the investment firm out of its own resources but in return for payments from a separate research payment account certain essential conditions should be ensured. The research payment account should only be funded by a specific research charge to the client which should only be based on a research budget set by the investment firm and not linked to the volume and/or value of transactions executed on behalf of clients. Any operational arrangements for the collection of the client's research charge should fully comply with those conditions. When using such arrangements, an investment firm should ensure that the cost of research funded by client charges is not linked to the volume or value of other services or benefits or used to cover any other purposes, such as charges for execution.