Clearing firm to offer "integrated" HSAs to its indie broker-dealer clients. Pershing plans to provide its broker-dealer clients with access to Millennium Trust Company's FlexHSA health savings account (HSA).

As tax-favored savings and investment accounts, HSAs give individual investors an opportunity to save for qualified medical expenses and retirement benefits. Millennium says its FlexHSA combines the benefits of a high-deductible health plan, an FDIC-insured bank account and an investment account.

"We designed an HSA solution with the Pershing [independent broker-dealer] and investment professional in mind," says Millennium's CEO Scott McCartan. "Our technology enables the investment professional to advise and manage their client's HSA investments on the Pershing platform, in a 'business as usual' environment."

Almost poetry

The Financial Research Corporation, a Boston-based consultancy, says there could be more than 8 million health-savings accounts with combined assets of $50 billion by year-end 2010. Chicago-based Diamond Management, another consultancy is even more bullish, seeing 15 million to 20 million health-savings accounts with a total of $75 billion in assets by mid-year 2009.

This time last year, the average HSA at HSA Bank, a division of Waterbury, Conn.-based Webster Bank, held about $1,900.

FlexHSA, which will soon be available on Pershing's NetExchange Pro brokerage platform, lets advisors manage their clients' HSA investments online and allows them to offer health insurance through Rosemont, Ill.-based Flexible Benefit Service Corporation.

"HSAs empower consumers to take more responsibility in saving and paying for their health care," says Flexible Benefit CEO Allen Wishner. "Investment professionals are in a unique position to expand their expertise beyond retirement to help clients manage both their health and their wealth."

It remains to be seen how far HSAs travel up the wealth ladder, however. It may be that many of the very well-off will view them, rather like 529s, as a waste of precious tax exemption.

Millennium offers traditional, Roth and SEP IRAs for individuals, solo 401(k)s for business owners and the self-employed, HSAs for individuals and groups, and an automatic-rollover IRA for plan sponsors. -FWR

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