Vanguard also provides brokerage services, variable and fixed annuities, educational account services, financial planning, asset management, and trust services.

The Comptroller's 1985 regulation made no distinction between fixed and variable annuities, permitting banks to sell both.

Funds investing in variable-rate loans and even a tax-deferred fixed annuity may also be appropriate, they said.

How the actual rate of interest is credited on the policy differentiates traditional fixed annuities from indexed annuities.

Some traditional fixed annuities offer multiple years guaranteed at the same rate, while others will leave the insurance company with the ability to adjust the rate annually.

RiverSource Annuities offers variable and fixed annuities for individual investors.

A fixed annuity typically pays out no more than 5 percent of the principal each year.

It has been able to convince its distribution system that had been selling variable annuities to sell fixed annuities.

In this case, the donor and his family will receive a fixed semiannual annuity for their lifetimes.

One of these is Mr. Williams's I.R.A. of $2,600, invested in two fixed annuities earning 5 percent.