National Financial is offering a program to retail broker-dealers that allow their customers' cash to be swept into multiple FDIC-insured bank accounts.

Broker-dealers can allocate their customers' brokerage cash across as many as eight banks in the National Financial Bank Deposit Sweep Program. An attraction for brokerage customers with big cash balances is that more of their money qualifies for FDIC insurance if it's placed in multiple accounts. Principal and accrued interest are eligible for FDIC insurance up to the current $250,000 per bank, or combined coverage of up to nearly $2 million when deposits are spread across multiple banks in the network. Since 2005, National Financial has offered a program that allows brokerage cash to be swept to a single bank.

National Financial also announced that Commonwealth Financial Network, the second-largest, privately held independent broker-dealer in the country, has made the program available to its individual investor clients.

National Financial, a Fidelity Investments company, offers custody services to more than 310 clients, including retail broker-dealers and institutional investment firms. As of June 30, National Financial custodied over $520 billion in assets in 5.4 million accounts.