Mutual Funds give Systematic Investment Plans the flexible edge to retain clients.

Systematic investment plans (SIPs), the cash cow for mutual fund companies, are witnessing a slew of features being added that provide flexibility to investors to time the market that prevents them from stopping subscriptions during bearish phases.

Edelweiss Mutual, ICICI Prudential MF, HDFC MF, Reliance Mutual and DSP Blackrock are others that have come out with flexible investment options in SIPs where they could choose various index levels at which their funds could be invested.

SIPs are mutual fund investment schemes where an investor contributes a regular sum of money every month like a recurring deposit of a bank. Since some investors stop adding to the corpus during times of downturn, asset management companies are evolving structures to keep investor interest alive.

Apart from trigger-based SIPs, DSP Blackrock, Axis Mutual Fund and ICICI Prudential have introduced 'SIP-by-debit card' facility which allow investors to pay online. DSP Blackrock MF has a 'Target value savings account', which allows investors to shift an equity fund investment into a relatively safer debt fund upon reaching a targeted value (or targeted portfolio return) in equity fund. ICICI Pru Mutual's Target Return Funds also work on a similar 'invest-redeem-invest' principle.

"Such options are encouraging people to invest more in equity funds,'' said Srikanth Meenakshi, director of Wealth India Financial Services. "Innovative features make fund investments more convenient, flexible and efficient."

Edelweiss Mutual Fund plans to launch its 'prepaid SIP' which will allow investors to time the market. Investors using this option will be initially required to invest from 25,000 to 2.5 lakh into Edelweiss MF's Absolute Return Fund, a balanced fund with a minimum equity exposure of 65%. The investor then chooses index triggers, say 1/2/3% correction in Nifty at which his funds could be invested.

Every time the index hits a pre-decided trigger level, 10% of the money invested in absolute return fund is released into select pure equity mutual funds.

Source: http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-10-22/news/30309872_1_systematic-investment-plans-equity-fund-edelweiss-mutual-fund