Short Takes: Invest Picks Fidelity For Clearing Services

Invest Financial Corp., Tampa, announced last week an agreement with the securities clearing unit of Fidelity Investments to provide clearing services for client banks with Invest programs.

Invest, one of the country's largest providers of insurance and securities products through financial institutions, anticipates moving more than 200 client banks to the new clearing firm, National Financial Services, by year's end.

"National Financial was one of the few firms which could support a network the size of Invest's and offer the level of technology and service necessary to provide our client banks with a competitive advantage," said Merlin R. Gackle, chairman and chief executive of Invest.

The business National Financial will handle had been done by Everen Securities. Both Invest and Everen were owned by Kemper until the companies, along with several other sister companies, were spun off over the last few years.

National Financial serves more than 250 retail and institutional broker- dealer correspondents. It maintains more than 2.5 million active accounts with more than $100 billion in total assets.

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