Fidelity Investments' National Financial Correspondent Services has rolled out two retirement products for its customers.
This month, the firm will begin offering the Roth IRA, a new individual retirement account, and the Simple IRA, which is aimed at small businesses, said Andrew G. Mantel, senior vice president in charge of retirement services.
Based in Boston, National Financial acts as a clearing agent, provides computer-based trading, and furnishes investment products for roughly 250 financial institutions nationwide. It counts some 100 banks among its correspondent brokers.
The Roth IRA was established by the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997. It lets individuals make after-tax contributions to retirement accounts, unlike traditional IRAs, which are pretax vehicles.
The Roth IRA offers higher income thresholds, ranging from $95,000 to $150,000, than traditional IRAs, which has an annual income cutoff of $30,000 to $40,000, Mr. Mantel said.
The Simple IRA-or Savings Investment Match Plan for Employees-is an investment product for businesses with fewer than 100 employees, Mr. Mantel said. The Simple IRA is an alternative to the 401(k) product used by larger companies, he said.
National Financial clients include some of the largest U.S. banks, such as Chase Manhattan Corp., NationsBank Corp., and State Street Corp.
One of its bank clients, Boston-based Fleet Financial Group, plans to acquire its own version of National Financial when it finalizes its purchase of discount broker Quick & Reilly this month.
Fleet is expected to close its $1.6 billion deal for the Palm Beach, Fla., discount broker on Jan. 31, which would give the bank access to U.S. Clearing Corp., Quick & Reilly's securities clearing arm.
Mr. Mantel said he could not comment on whether National Financial will lose the Fleet account when the deal is finalized. Fleet and Quick & Reilly did not comment.
