Regular savings plans achieve what is known as dollar cost averaging. Over time, investors end up with a favourable entry price into their underlying unit trust or trusts. They get more units when prices are down, and correspondingly less when prices rise.

About half of the 45 HKIFA member companies offer regular savings plans, according to Sally Wong, the organisation's senior executive manager.

But few Hong Kong people invest in unit trusts.

'Only about 3.5 per cent of the population has invested in funds, so there is much to be done by the industry and the association to raise awareness about funds in general.

'Our first objective is to lift the overall public awareness of fund investment. Depending on the needs of individual investors, a savings plan can be very useful,' she said.

'They are suited to people who are not very aware of financial markets or people with no spare time to look after their investments.' Ms Wong said savings plans were also suitable for people saving for a specific objective, such as their children's education.

Grant Forster, vice-president of BT Funds Management Asia, said regular savings plans were not yet fully appreciated in Hong Kong despite their many advantages.

'They make so much sense from a retail perspective. There is the discipline of direct debit from the customer's bank account and all the benefits of dollar cost averaging. They take the stress out of investment. People are always saying: 'Every time I try to get into the market I miss it.' With regular savings, you are not trying to time markets.' Investment advisers channel a lot of the money gathered from BT's regular savers into BT's Global Equities Fund, which has a very low exposure to Asia and returned 23.03 per cent in the year to May 31 and 77.42 per cent over three years.

Dresdner RCM Global Investors also offers a regular savings plan service. The Dresdner RCM Regular Investment Programme requires a minimum investment of $2,000 a month, compared with the group's normal unit trust minimum of $5,000.

Angela Fung, manager, investment services marketing for the group, said: 'The programme is suited for people who have never invested in unit trusts before because they can start with very small amounts.' Front-end discounts also apply to Dresdner's regular savers. They get one percentage point off the first year's front-end fee and two percentage points off in the second and later years.

'For beginners, we recommend a balanced portfolio of medium to low-risk funds unless the investor has a specific area they want to invest in,' Ms Fung said.