The Cash Opportunity for Advisors:

The benefits of bringing cash into focus for advisors and clients


Last updated: November 8, 2024

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

 

Welcome to the third article in The Cash Opportunity Series, which explores all things cash. More specifically, the cash that people have outside their portfolio — usually in accounts earning minimal interest — and outside the purview of their advisor. In the first two articles, we looked at what held-away cash is and why people have it. Once advisors recognize the importance of cash and understand client motivations, then they can make the most of the advantages it offers. In this next part of the series, we’re taking a closer look at the benefits that bringing cash into focus offers for both advisors and their clients.

Throughout this series, we’ve shown there is a lot more cash out there than advisors realize and that clients have significant reasons for keeping it close. Advisors might be wondering what the incentive is to bring cash into their practice if — so far — business has been fine without it. From conversations with hundreds of RIAs, we’ve identified three key reasons why bringing cash into focus can have substantial benefits for advisors and their clients. 

1. Add client value 

As we discussed in the last article, clients have real reasons for holding cash, including for an emergency fund, for short-term liabilities, and to enhance their sense of security. While these cash reserves have typically been outside the advisor’s realm, that no longer needs to be the case.

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Advisors who offer client access to a cash management solution with a competitive rate open the door to a variety of benefits: 

  • Higher yield: Traditional bank accounts offer clients a low interest rate on their cash. According to the FDIC, the national average interest rate for savings accounts was 0.45% APY in October 2024,# while competitive-yield accounts such as Flourish Cash often provide over 9x the returns. On a tactical level, this can be presented in terms of dollars and cents. Clients with a self-reported net worth of $1-2MM hold an average of $194,716 in Flourish Cash accounts.|| At our rate as of 11/08/2024 of 4.25% APY,§ they are earning more than $8,275 annually. In a standard savings account, that same cash balance would earn only $876. At current rates, the extra yield earned could pay for an entire vacation or offset half of the typical client's advisory fees. 
  • Maintain liquidity: Unlike CDs and certain fixed income investments, cash remains accessible to clients. Advisors who can recognize a client’s internal motivations for wanting to retain liquidity will be in a stronger position to advise on the opportunities. 
  • Increased happiness: Research has shown that people with larger cash reserves experience a greater sense of well-being.1 Advisors have the opportunity to deliver more value to clients by helping them optimize their held-away cash: increasing both the yield and their happiness. 
  • Help clients with their businesses: Many clients are deeply engaged with businesses and nonprofits, which typically sit outside the advisory relationship. Through support for corporations, LLCs, nonprofits and partnerships, advisors can offer a value-add solution for another critical part of their clients’ financial lives.

Particularly when faced with challenging market conditions, enabling clients to earn more on their cash gives advisors a new opportunity to help clients reach their goals. “Telling clients to do nothing and stay the course can be some of the hardest advice to give,” said Flourish President Ben Cruikshank. “Now the story can be: ‘We’re not making any changes to the portfolio, but we’ve identified a major opportunity for you to reach your goals.’” Giving clients concrete steps to take can help them stay on track, while demonstrating that you’re working hard on their behalf.


A Tale of Two Rates:

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Source: Flourish Financial LLC; data as of 01/01/2024, average balances calculated with respect to each household's non-zero Flourish account balances across all household accounts with a self-reported net worth of $1-2M. Rate of 4.25% APY as of 11/08/2024 for all account balances for all account types. Rates subject to change.

2. Bring assets into your orbit 

Gaining visibility of held-away cash can lead to better financial planning. Visibility can result in better advice, particularly when it comes to understanding clients’ needs outside the portfolio and helping them reach both their short- and long-term financial goals. Many independent advisors aim to offer clients holistic planning and taking held-away cash into consideration is an essential part of the picture.

In addition, bringing assets into your orbit can lead to better investing. Understanding how much cash your clients hold, and the reasons why, can help advisors gauge the right amount of risk to take in the portfolio, potentially increasing equity exposure when faced with larger than expected cash balances. 

In the situation where a client is holding more cash than anticipated, advisors can open a conversation about client goals, fears, and needs. If, working together, advisors and clients determine that the client is holding more in cash than is needed, it can open up a conversation about bringing excess cash into a fee-earning account within the portfolio. Visibility is key to starting the conversation. 

3. Defend against competitors 

In a time of increasing competition, advisors need to deliver more to ensure client – and asset – retention. As Flourish CEO Max Lane said in his year-end letter to advisors, “Critically important parts of your clients’ financial lives sit outside the portfolio, held away from you…Banks, startup trading firms, robo-advisors, lending platforms, crypto exchanges, and more are all attempting to win a portion of your client’s financial lives for themselves by focusing on these gaps.” 

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Bringing cash into focus helps advisors fill in the gap and protect their clients’ assets from the hands of their competitors. As Cruikshank explained: “In FinTech, companies such as Betterment, Robinhood, Personal Capital, and SoFi are all racing to become the all-in-one shop and have introduced cash solutions in recent years. Banks such as Ally and Marcus have hired teams of CFPs and integrated cash with their advisory teams to cross-sell affluent investors with their advisory services. Cash is either inside your orbit, or it’s not. And if it’s not, it’s some other competitors’ opportunity to pick off.” Advisors need to deliver more for their clients — or someone else will. 

In addition to client retention, defending against competitors requires client acquisition. “Most RIAs have high retention rates and don’t think they need to worry about competitive pressures,” said Cruikshank. “But the same RIAs often have low, single-digit organic growth rates. While you may not lose a client due to cash today, in ten years it could be the difference between being a firm that is acquiring and a firm that is being acquired.” Growth-minded firms are not only interested in serving the clients of today, but also bringing in the clients of tomorrow. 

Building your business through cash

With the greatest generational wealth transfer on the horizon,2 advisors have an opportunity to secure their position by focusing on their clients' holistic financial lives. Offering a suite of additional, exclusive products to clients can bolster your firm’s brand in a competitive market. Taking cash into consideration is low-hanging fruit. Access to a RIA-centric cash management solution offers clients tangible benefits while enabling advisors to gain essential visibility into their clients' financial lives, offer more holistic planning, increase their level of service, and defend against competitors. In the next article of the series, we will dive into how to initiate conversations about cash with clients at all levels. 

About Flourish

Flourish builds technology that empowers financial advisors, improves financial lives and retirement outcomes, and delivers new and innovative investment options to advisors. Today, the Flourish platform is used by more than 850 wealth management firms representing more than $1.5 trillion in assets under management. Flourish is wholly-owned by Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMutual). For more information, visit www.flourish.com.

 

Interested in learning more about Flourish Cash?


Flourish is an online platform through which investors can access financial services and products. Flourish’s offerings are provided by different entities and are subject to different terms, investor protections, and risks. Flourish Cash is offered by Flourish Financial LLC, a registered broker-dealer and FINRA member. Flourish Financial LLC is not a bank. Check the background of Flourish Financial LLC and its personnel on FINRA's BrokerCheck. Flourish Crypto is offered by Paxos Trust Company, LLC, a New York limited purpose trust company regulated by the New York Department of Financial Services that provides custody and execution services for the Flourish Crypto accounts, and Flourish Digital Assets LLC, registered in New York as a commodity broker-dealer and provides website and other services and support for Flourish Crypto accounts. Paxos is not an affiliate of Flourish. Flourish Annuities refers generally to the annuity platform operated by Flourish Technologies LLC, where applicable, and to Flourish Insurance Agency LLC in its capacity as a licensed insurance producer providing insurance services related to such platform. Flourish Insurance Agency LLC does business in California under the name Flourish Digital Insurance Agency. An annuity is an insurance contract. Annuities shown on the platform are sold through Flourish Insurance Agency LLC, a licensed insurance producer, with offices in Jersey City, New Jersey, and are issued by one or more approved licensed life insurance companies. The Flourish entities mentioned above are affiliates. Flourish Cash, Flourish Crypto, and Flourish Annuities accounts are separate accounts and only assets in Flourish Cash accounts may be eligible for protection by the FDIC or SIPC. Please review the Legal section of our website, and the disclosures provided with each Flourish service or product, for further information. If you were introduced or invited to Flourish by an investment advisor or other third party, please be aware that, unless otherwise disclosed to you, they are not affiliated with any Flourish entity. The role of the investment advisor or other firm that invited you to Flourish may vary between different Flourish services and products, as further described in your terms of service. © 2024 Flourish. All rights reserved.

† A Flourish Cash account is a brokerage account offered by Flourish Financial LLC, a registered broker-dealer and FINRA member. Flourish Financial LLC is not a bank. Check the background of Flourish Financial LLC and its personnel on FINRA's BrokerCheck. The cash balance in a Flourish Cash account will be swept from the brokerage account to deposit account(s) at one or more third-party Program Banks that have agreed to accept deposits from customers of Flourish Financial LLC. The accounts at Program Banks will pay a variable rate of interest.

# Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, National Deposit Rates: Savings [SNDR], retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SNDR, 10/21/2024.

|| Source: Flourish Financial LLC; data as of 01/01/2024, average balances calculated with respect to each household's non-zero Flourish account balances across all household accounts.

§ Flourish Cash has a tiered interest rate structure and currently has one tier in effect. Rate and FDIC insurance coverage details can be found in the program summary. We deposit your cash with one or more of the Program Banks, subject to any Program Bank(s) you have excluded. You will earn the highest rate offered by Flourish up to the maximum deposit amount for each tier. Each annual percentage yield (APY) displayed here is effective as of 11/08/2024 and may change at any time. Your advisor may charge fees which impact the effective rate you receive on your cash; you should speak with your advisor for more information. The Flourish Cash interest rate(s) could be lower than the rate that could be earned by opening a deposit account directly with a Program Bank.

1 Ruberton, P. M., Gladstone, J., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2016). How your bank balance buys happiness: The importance of “cash on hand” to life satisfaction. Emotion, 16(5), 575–580.

2 Hall, Mark. Forbes. “The Greatest Wealth Transfer in History: What’s Happening and What are the Implications.” November 11, 2019.