Better Banking Benefits RIAs and Clients, Flourish Exec Says

"Our ultimate goal is to move RIAs from what we call wealth 2.0, which is where advisors are giving holistic wealth management guidance to their clients, to wealth 3.0, which is a stage where they are able to provide holistic execution on their clients' behalf," Cruikshank said in a recent interview with ThinkAdvisor. "We're quickly moving in that direction and we think we'll be there soon — in a matter of six to 18 months."

At this stage, Cruikshank observed, Flourish has deployed advanced capabilities in several key areas, including annuities and insurance, cash management, cryptocurrencies and now accounting. Next on the agenda is expanded services in lending and liability management, building on the firm's 2025 acquisition of Sora Finance.

"Our vision on the banking and lending side is really exciting," Cruikshank said. "We believe we can create a full-fledged alternative to the traditional business banking offerings from the big established incumbents that today really aren't offering a great deal to their business-owner clients."

Flourish's overall approach, he observed, is about helping advisors scale, differentiate and offer holistic financial planning through integrations with platforms like eMoney, Orion and Black Diamond.

"That's what advice 3.0 means to us, and we couldn't be more excited about the work we are doing to get there," Cruikshank said.

Here are some additional highlights from our conversation, edited for length and clarity.

THINKADVISOR: Could you unpack this idea of wealth 2.0 versus wealth 3.0 and how you view this as the guiding mission of Flourish?

BEN CRUIKSHANK: Absolutely. What we are talking about is a real technological transformation in terms of how advisors actually are able to implement the guidance they are giving to their clients.

We think the industry is still planted in the world of wealth 2.0, by which we mean the wealth management world has moved beyond its original position of just providing investment advice about the portfolio. Today, many leading wealth managers are doing a lot more than that, providing guidance and expertise across more areas like tax, retirement, estate, etc.

That's a great thing, but advisors are still pretty limited in what they can do to actually move on their clients' behalf and help to fully implement the holistic advice they are giving — and that's really where we believe advisors can make an even bigger difference in the lives of their clients.

Getting to wealth 3.0 — to a stage where implementation of holistic advice is seamless and deeply connected across platforms — is what Flourish is all about, and frankly, we aren't alone in that vision. There's a tremendous amount of energy and investment happening in the wealth management industry today to improve insight and implementation, particularly in areas like tax, trust, estate, insurance, annuities, banking and lending.

THINKADVISOR: In this context, have you been surprised by the growth of Flourish Cash in the small-business sector?

CRUIKSHANK: Yes and no, honestly. It wasn't necessarily our plan to build out the business segment, but in hindsight it makes a lot of sense, because we did something pretty radical or revolutionary. That is, we have offered the same deal of higher rates and flexible service to business owners as we do to personal clients.

As you may know, in the world of business banking, it is still the norm to get basically paid nothing on your cash holdings. There's also the challenge of restrictions on FDIC insurance, and you still find big limitations on the timing of penalty-free withdrawals and other things like that. Additionally, the application process is still out of the Stone Age. So, it's our perspective that business banking is just kind of broken.

In that sense, if we can empower advisors to deliver a better banking solution to their business-owner clients, it just makes sense that take-up would be meaningful.

THINKADVISOR: Can you say more about how the offering, in your view, is superior to what traditional banks are offering to business owners? And what about personal banking clients?

CRUIKSHANK: For clients who are business owners, having access to competitive rates and enhanced FDIC coverage helps improve cash flow management, provides greater financial security and ensures liquidity.

We are able to offer enhanced FDIC insurance coverage through our program banks, providing businesses up to $7.5 million in FDIC insurance for business accounts. Two-person households are eligible to receive up to $30 million in FDIC insurance through a joint account and two individual accounts.

This provides up to 30 times more coverage than standard checking or savings accounts, which is particularly valuable for clients with higher balances.

The new QuickBooks and Quicken integrations add to the value proposition and give business clients the same automated data sync with Flourish Cash that they have with their other bank accounts. Crucially, Flourish Cash also provides businesses with daily liquidity and unlimited transfers. That way, they can access their funds as needed for payroll, operating expenses or unexpected needs — while still earning a better rate.

THINKADVISOR: You have said that you soft-launched the QuickBooks and Quicken integrations as a means of testing the solution. What kind of response have you seen?

CRUIKSHANK: Yes that's right. What we did was basically build out all the plumbing and made sure everything was working as it should, and then we quietly made the integrations available within the platform.

We expected that some users would find the functionality and put it into use, and that's exactly what happened. In fact, the uptake was pretty remarkable. We organically had dozens of people turn on the integrations in the first couple days.

We did a more formal internal launch of the integrations at the end of last year, and we have already reached more than 1,200 connections for Quicken and QuickBooks combined. Now that we are publicly announcing and actively promoting the integrations, that number should climb even more quickly.