Our Custodian – About Fidelity
Fidelity Institutional provides a comprehensive clearing and custody platform, brokerage services, trading capabilities, and practice management and consulting to registered investment advisers (RIAs), including strategic acquirers and professional asset managers, as well as retirement recordkeepers, broker-dealer firms, banks, and insurance companies through National Financial Services LLC (NFS) or Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC, Members NYSE, SIPC. In addition to providing services to third-party institutions, the NFS brokerage platform supports all the clearing and custody businesses at Fidelity, including Fidelity’s retail and capital markets businesses, bring NFS assets under administration to more than $4.5 trillion.
Working with Fidelity Institutional gives McCarter Private Wealth Services LLC access to a wide range of products and services that can help us serve the needs of our clients.
Asset Protection
Securities in accounts carried by National Financial Services LLC (NFS), a Fidelity Investments company, are protected in accordance with the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) up to $500,000. The $500,000 total amount of SIPC protection includes up to $250,000 of protection on claims for cash, subject to periodic adjustments for inflation in accordance with the terms of the SIPC statute and approval by SIPC’s board of directors. NFS also has arranged for coverage above these limits. Neither coverage protects against a decline in the market value of securities, nor does either coverage extend to certain securities that are considered ineligible for coverage. For more details about SIPC or to request a SIPC brochure, visit www.sipc.org or call 202.371.8300.
“Excess of SIPC” Coverage
In addition to SIPC protection, NFS provides for brokerage accounts additional “excess of SIPC” coverage. The excess of SIPC coverage will be used only when SIPC coverage is exhausted. Like SIPC protection, excess of SIPC protection does not cover investment losses in customer accounts due to market fluctuation. It also does not cover other claims for losses incurred while broker-dealers remain in business. Total aggregate excess of SIPC coverage available through NFS’s excess of SIPC policy is $1 billion. Within NFS’s excess of SIPC coverage, there is no per-customer dollar limit on coverage of securities, but there is a per account limit of $1.9 million on coverage of cash awaiting investment. This is the maximum excess of SIPC protection currently available in the brokerage industry.