Jack Sharry: Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of WealthTech on Deck.
Over the past five years, we’ve explored the trends, technologies, and ideas shaping the future of wealth management. One theme that comes up repeatedly is convergence, bringing a client’s entire financial life into one connected experience.
One of the biggest gaps in that experience has been cash. It’s often a significant household asset, but it can sit outside the advisor’s workflow.
My guest today is Max Lane. Max is CEO of Flourish, a platform helping advisors move from holistic advice to holistic implementation. We’ll talk about that distinction, particularly across cash management and lending.
Many of you have also seen the recent news about Flourish’s expanded integration with Orion. We’ll talk much more about that today.
Max, welcome to WealthTech on Deck. It’s great to have you here.
Max Lane: Jack, thanks for having me and for the great introduction.
Jack Sharry: Tell us about your journey to Flourish. We’re going to talk about Flourish, of course, but I always like to hear the backstory.
How did your career journey unfold and ultimately lead you to Flourish? I’d also love to hear more about your views on advice and how they led to the great company you’ve built.
Max Lane: Sure. Flourish has a somewhat unique journey because we were created within an asset manager here in New York.
At the time, that asset manager was selling mutual funds to independent RIAs. Through the mutual fund business, the firm observed that there was an entire suite of financial products and other areas of a client’s balance sheet that were critically important to the client’s life, but for which RIAs and independent advisors didn’t have good tools.
Advisors didn’t have the resources to fully serve the end client and pair holistic advice with holistic implementation.
A couple of colleagues and I were brought in to build what is now Flourish. The original vision was based on that same observation: Other parts of a client’s balance sheet, including cash, lending, tax, trusts, and estate planning, were important because they all represented meaningful parts of the client’s money and financial life.
Advisors were perhaps too focused on investments. No one is saying investments are unimportant, but all those other areas are also important. Addressing them is how you deliver the best outcomes.
That has always been the through line in Flourish’s journey: How do we help advisors move from holistic advice to holistic implementation?
What has evolved since our founding in 2017 is that we’re now laser-focused on delivering what we call private bank-like experiences for independent advisors. We’re particularly focused on cash and lending, meaning the deposit and lending sides of the balance sheet.
One renewed observation is that an independent advisor may be able to go toe-to-toe with a Morgan Stanley advisor on the quality of advice, trust, and the investment platform. But that Morgan Stanley advisor is connected to a large balance sheet and can therefore give clients great deposit products and financing solutions. That becomes a differentiator and another way to add client value.
Flourish is trying to serve as that private bank, if you will, for independent advisors so they can deliver those same capabilities and provide a private bank-like experience through the independent channel.
Jack Sharry: Great. I love it.
For listeners who may not know Flourish, tell us about Flourish Cash. What problems does it solve, and how are advisors using it today?
Max Lane: Flourish Cash is our flagship product. We brought it to market in 2018, and it’s probably still what we’re best known for.
You can think of it as an advisor-centric replacement for a traditional savings account.
For the end client, the value proposition is fairly simple. You can earn a better rate on your cash and receive expanded levels of FDIC insurance, all through a modern, elegant technology interface.
High-net-worth individuals in the United States often hold 10% to 20% of their entire net worth in cash. I’m not talking about cash within the portfolio. I’m talking about money sitting at a brick-and-mortar bank in a checking account, often earning close to zero, if not zero, and frequently exceeding FDIC insurance limits.
This provides end clients with a better cash account and savings solution.
Beyond the immediate value to clients, the commercial value for an advisor is that addressing held-away cash can be a great asset-gathering strategy. High-net-worth individuals may hold 10% to 20% of their wealth in cash, and that money has historically sat outside the independent advisor’s purview.
By using Flourish Cash and gaining visibility into those previously held-away assets, advisors are often surprised by how much cash their clients hold elsewhere. That opens the door to planning conversations.
Our data shows that, over time, money moves from traditional banks into Flourish Cash. A portion of that money then makes its way into the portfolio as advisors have planning conversations and help clients deploy more of those assets.
It really is a win-win-win. It helps us run our business, provides clients with more protection and yield, and gives advisors an opportunity to uncover additional assets held by their existing clients. It’s an elegant solution that is also easy to use.
Jack Sharry: I’m going to guess that advisors like this a lot because it gives them a way to address money they don’t currently manage.
We know from other studies that there’s a great deal of money looking for a home, but clients haven’t necessarily determined its best application, use, or deployment.
Tell us about the reaction. How are advisors embracing this? I have to believe they’re all over it.
Max Lane: Once advisors begin using the solution, we receive very positive feedback. We’ve been fortunate to build significant scale in the independent channel.
We work with more than 1,300 independent RIA firms, and more than 8,000 individual advisors use our platform.
The initial challenge we’ve had to work through is that independent advisors aren’t necessarily accustomed to talking about cash. That goes back to our original observation. First and foremost, advisors tend to be investment-focused. That’s their bread and butter. They often start and end with the portfolio.
A major part of our job is educating them about why this is good for their clients and why it’s good for them as advisors and business owners.
One initial reaction we hear is, “I believe many advisors’ clients are holding 10% to 20% of their net worth in cash, but not my clients. I have every dollar my clients own.”
Fortunately, we’re usually able to convince them to give it a try and see what happens. Inevitably, the first one or two clients almost always hold more cash than the advisor realized.
That’s when the advisor understands the value proposition. Their clients are holding significant amounts of cash, and this is a better solution for them. The advisor can feel great about having that conversation.
It’s a great opportunity for an advisor to call a client and say, “Jack, would you rather earn zero dollars in interest this year or $10,000 in interest this year?”
Usually, the answer is $10,000.
It’s also valuable for the advisor to gain a fuller picture of the client’s wealth and see how that visibility can lead to portfolio growth. [WealthTech...t Max Lane | Word]
Jack Sharry: This is great. I love it.
Max, it’s interesting to hear you say that. For years, I’ve heard advisors say they have all their clients’ money, but studies indicate that they don’t.
We recently conducted a study, and one finding really stood out. I’m going to share a few statistics, and I’d love your reaction.
We used Fuse, a product- and platform-oriented firm, to help us with the study. Ninety-five percent of those surveyed reported actively trying to consolidate client assets. There’s no surprise there.
Eighty-one percent said they communicate that they provide household-level portfolio management services. Yet, 71% of investors said their advisors had never asked them to move more assets under management.
What are your thoughts? Does that resonate?
Max Lane: It does.
The first issue, as you mentioned, is that some advisors believe they have every penny of their clients’ wealth.
Second, I think there is a cohort of advisors who are apprehensive about asking clients where the rest of their wealth is or what other assets are out there.
I think that comes from a good place, especially in the RIA channel, where independent RIAs take great pride in being fiduciaries. They say, “I’m not a salesperson. I do what’s best for my clients.”
That can be taken too far, however. I wouldn’t even consider these conversations selling.
End clients want to know about all the capabilities their advisors offer. They want their advisors to ask what has changed in their financial lives because that’s what they’re paying them for. They want advice. The more advice they can receive across more areas of their financial lives, the better off they’ll be.
That statistic aligns with much of what we’ve seen over the years. Advisors can be apprehensive about pushing or probing too much, but we see the opposite reaction from end clients.
From where we sit, we have relationships with both the advisor and the end client. Sometimes we’re in the middle, and the end client tells us things they may not tell the advisor.
Jack Sharry: Sure.
Max Lane: I’ll give you one example.
One thing end clients love about Flourish Cash is that they’re comfortable with the account being within the advisor’s orbit and ecosystem. The advisor knows what’s happening, but the client can maintain control.
Clients tell us, “I don’t want to have to call my advisor when I need $10,000. I’m an adult, and it’s my money. If I need $10,000, there’s always going to be some pool of money I want to control.”
That’s a major differentiator compared with a cash solution held inside the portfolio.
From a behavioral standpoint, end clients tell us they don’t like feeling that they’ve given up control. Flourish Cash occupies that middle ground. The account remains within the advisor’s orbit, earns a competitive rate, and provides protection, but the end client remains in control.
It’s still the client’s money. In the client’s mind, the portfolio can feel more distant.
Jack Sharry: Interesting. We’ll have to continue that conversation offline.
The psychology of money is fascinating. People are funny about it, but I completely understand.
Let’s talk about the shift from holistic advice to holistic implementation. That’s an important part of what you do. What does it mean?
Max Lane: Let me unpack it using cash as an example, and then we can segue into the lending side of the business.
We’ve discussed this recent phase of wealth management, which we sometimes call Wealth 3.0. We think it’s characterized by the shift from holistic advice to holistic implementation.
Here’s how we see the current state of the industry: Most RIAs and independent advisors are doing holistic planning and providing holistic advice. They create comprehensive financial plans that cover much more than investments.
Those plans might include advice about insurance, cash management, lending, and tax strategies.
Outside of investments, however, the advisor often hands the document to the client and says, “Here’s your homework, Jack. You need to refinance your mortgage, open a high-yield cash account, or establish a securities-backed line of credit. I only manage the investments.”
There’s a disconnect between holistic advice and holistic implementation.
The ideal end state of wealth management is different. As an end client, I’m paying a trusted advisor to oversee and provide advice on all my money. I don’t want homework. I want technology and my advisor to implement the plan on my behalf.
That’s what we mean when we describe our mission. We want to deliver an advisor-centric platform that complements what the traditional custodian does on the investment side and helps advisors execute other parts of the financial plan.
If the client needs a high-yield cash account, the advisor can help open a Flourish Cash account. If the client needs a competitive mortgage rate, refinancing, or a HELOC, we can help.
That’s what it means to move from holistic advice to holistic implementation, and it’s where we believe the industry is going.
We’re taking that idea even further.
Most of our value proposition to date has focused on helping clients earn a competitive rate and helping advisors uncover assets. Increasingly, however, end clients are using Flourish Cash almost as a hybrid checking and savings account, or even as a replacement for a traditional bank account.
The lines between checking and savings capabilities are becoming blurred.
Not only can we help clients earn a competitive rate, but as Flourish Cash takes on more of the client’s operating-cash functions, we can package that data for both the end client and the advisor. That can support more advice and implementation.
That could include real-time cash-flow analysis, identifying liability- or tax-optimization opportunities, and uncovering potential increases in the savings rate.
It pairs advice with implementation in a dynamic, technology-driven way.
Jack Sharry: Interesting. Let’s talk about lending.
I know you’ve been working in that area. Tell us about the suite of services and how everything comes together.
Max Lane: We launched Flourish Lending in 2026, beginning with residential financing, including mortgages and refinancing.
HELOCs are coming later in 2026, and we’re actively building that capability now. You’re getting a preview, Jack. HELOCs will be announced shortly.
Let me begin with the origin of Flourish Lending and then explain what it is.
For years, we received significant inbound interest from advisors. They would say, “You’re doing great things on the deposit side. Can you help us with lending as well?”
More specifically, they identified residential financing as a major gap. They might have had securities-backed solutions, but they didn’t have mortgages or refinancing capabilities.
That created two main problems.
First, purchasing a home is one of the largest, most consequential, and most emotional decisions people make in their lives, especially in the United States.
If you’re a holistic fiduciary advisor but don’t have the capabilities and tools to participate in one of the costliest, most impactful, and most emotional financial decisions in your clients’ lives, you may not be meeting their expectations. At the very least, you could be doing more.
Advisors felt that. They told us they needed to become involved because their clients needed help and guidance.
Jack Sharry: It’s fundamental.
Max Lane: Second, from a commercial standpoint, independent advisors without strong residential financing tools leave an opening for wirehouses and private bank advisors to insert themselves into the relationship.
Even if they don’t take the client, they may take assets by using relationship pricing.
There’s a common tactic in the banking sector: “Jack, I’ll take 50 basis points off your mortgage if you move more than half a million dollars to this bank or wirehouse.”
Advisors felt that pain from both the client-outcome and client-experience perspectives, as well as from the commercial perspective because they were losing assets.
That’s why we set out to build Flourish Lending, beginning with mortgages and refinancing.
The first element of the solution is competitive rates. We heard clearly that if we couldn’t compete with relationship pricing, we wouldn’t truly help our advisory clients.
We made innovative changes on the infrastructure side that essentially eliminated some historical intermediary costs. Depending on whether it’s a conventional or jumbo mortgage, we can often beat the national average by roughly 25 to 100 basis points out of the box. That allows us to compete with relationship pricing.
The second element is premium service.
In addition to the modern, elegant technology for which we’re known, we have our own loan officers on staff. An advisor or client interacts only with Flourish technology or a Flourish loan officer.
That allows us to help control the experience, which has been our calling card for several years.
The third element is advisor-centricity.
Advisors can be as involved as they want in the process. They can help complete the mortgage application, provide tax or income-verification documentation, and participate in three-way calls with the loan officer. Alternatively, they can hand the process off to the end client.
It depends on how involved the advisor wants to be.
This is a much more advisor-centric capability than simply passing along a referral and hoping for the best. That isn’t how our solution works.
Another way we provide advisor-centricity is through technology. One feature I’d highlight is Refi Monitoring.
An advisor can connect existing clients to our Refi Monitoring capability using basic profile information. On the back end, we obtain estimated home values and existing mortgage data.
We continuously monitor the advisor’s existing client base and send actionable alerts when refinancing may make financial sense.
With very little work, because the ongoing monitoring happens in the background, an advisor might receive an alert that says, “Jack could save $700 per month by refinancing. Would you like to call Jack and have that conversation?”
That’s another great conversation for an advisor to have.
Those are the three main pieces of what we’ve built: highly competitive rates designed to compete with relationship pricing, premium service, and advisor-centricity.
Jack Sharry: Wow. That’s very cool and very smart.
I had a similar experience not long ago. I worked with a large global wealth management institution. Because I held assets with the firm and obtained my mortgage through it, I received better pricing.
I have a hunch you might have been a little faster than they were, but that’s another matter.
Max Lane: I’ll highlight our record so far. We closed one mortgage in 14 days, which we’re very proud of. We’ll see if we can go even faster.
Jack Sharry: As you should. Hooray for technology.
I have a two-part question. My next question was going to be about organic growth, but I want to back up first.
You mentioned earlier that advisors can be reluctant to move beyond their traditional role because of how they view and position their fiduciary responsibility.
It seems that advisor education is part of your work, especially educating advisors about how to manage the full household more effectively. Tell us about that process.
Max Lane: The great thing about working with independent RIAs is that, at their core, they want to do what’s best for the client.
That’s one of the beautiful things about the business model. The advisor and client are on the same side of the table.
As a starting point, RIAs are very open to finding ways to add more client value. They believe that if they add value, everything else, including assets and revenue, will follow.
Our role is to help them recognize that it’s a brave new world. There’s more to discuss than portfolios and investments. We also emphasize that their end clients want these additional capabilities.
End clients are becoming more demanding of their advisors. Not that long ago, a previous generation might have been happy to pay 1% for a 60/40 portfolio. There might not even have been a financial plan. It was simply a portfolio.
Then the industry evolved. Clients began expecting a plan combined with portfolio management.
Now clients are saying, “If you’re giving me the plan, why do I still have homework? Why don’t you implement it?”
It’s a natural evolution, and it’s in the advisor’s best interest.
This also connects to organic growth. First, by having a truly holistic implementation platform, advisors can naturally expand their share of wallet among existing clients.
I already gave cash as an example. Lending can also provide an opportunity to consolidate more assets when the capability is offered in a differentiated way.
Second, these capabilities allow advisors to present a differentiated value proposition when speaking with prospects and pursuing new clients.
I would add that cash and lending are highly referable products. When end clients have a great experience with Flourish Cash or Flourish Lending, they naturally want to tell friends and family about it.
We have a referral flow in the platform that generates thousands of referrals for advisors simply because clients have had a great experience with a cash account or lending solution.
A client might say, “Jack, I want you to meet my brother-in-law. He just sold a business.”
That creates an opportunity for the advisor to build a relationship and grow the business.
Finally, there’s the defensive consideration, particularly in lending. As I mentioned, banks can use lending as an attack strategy.
Advisors don’t want their clients transferring assets to a large wirehouse or private bank. They want to offer clients the same mortgage capabilities without requiring them to move their money.
All these things are good for business.
Our role is to educate advisors that clients want these services and that providing them is also good for the business. It’s a win-win. We help advisors understand the opportunity and equip them with solutions so they can add value and continue building more resilient RIA firms.
Jack Sharry: Talk about the progression from advisors being reluctant to enter areas where they felt uncomfortable to where they are today.
Now we’re talking about the whole megillah: the client’s mortgage, cash, portfolio, estate planning, and everything else.
How are you seeing that shift as advisors become more comfortable and familiar with these areas?
Max Lane: We’re definitely seeing the shift.
Part of it is that Flourish and other providers associated with the Wealth 3.0 theme have been around long enough to get in front of people and demonstrate the value. That always helps.
Second, more progressive, growth-oriented advisors naturally understand the opportunity. We don’t have to do much selling. We can move quickly to explaining why we’re the best solution for them and their end clients.
Growth-oriented advisors understand that they need full-service capabilities and a comprehensive menu. They want to deliver as much value as possible because everything else follows from that.
Third, there’s competitive pressure.
I’d highlight two areas. The first is fintech firms, robo-advisors, and platforms such as Robinhood. They’re becoming increasingly full-service.
They may have started with trading and portfolios, but they’ve moved into cash management, lending, and other areas.
The people an advisor once assumed would never become clients are now 10 years older. One day, many of those people will want advice. The question is whether they’ll become your clients or someone else’s.
The second source of competitive pressure is the wirehouse channel. I’d highlight Morgan Stanley as perhaps the premier example.
Morgan Stanley has executed a strong strategy by building a full-service wealth management platform. It has secondary-market and financing capabilities, strong banking products, and all the investment products clients might need.
It also markets aggressively around how cash management can serve as a wedge. Morgan Stanley is doing a great job growing its wealth management business.
That competitive pressure has helped more hesitant advisors recognize they need to step outside their comfort zones. The market is changing, and client demands are changing.
Advisors are also realizing that expanding their capabilities is good for business. That helps them become more willing to take the next step.
Jack Sharry: Very interesting.
Let’s talk about where you’re headed and what’s coming down the pike. I’m thinking specifically about the work you’re doing with enterprise-level organizations.
Where does Flourish go from here? You’re clearly well underway with your current capabilities, but what do you see down the road?
I’m thinking about the kind of model Morgan Stanley represents. It has figured this out on a larger scale than almost anyone.
Max Lane: I’d highlight three things.
First, you mentioned the enterprise side. We’ve been fortunate, and we’re very proud, to serve some of the largest RIAs in the country today.
That’s no small feat. You can have a great cash account and lending solution, but there’s an entirely separate body of work involved in serving a large, complex organization with thousands of employees.
We’re proud of the success we’ve had, and we continue investing in the capabilities needed to serve wealth management organizations with 5,000 or 10,000 employees at scale.
We have some great things coming from permissioning and data-model perspectives to ensure that we fit within enterprise infrastructure.
Second, we’re building more product capabilities into our vision for private bank-like experiences.
I already highlighted one of them. We’re evolving Flourish Cash from a great savings solution into what we hope will simply be the best cash account available.
Over the next several months, we plan to add important traditional checking capabilities, including check deposits, third-party transfers, and a debit card. Those capabilities will allow Flourish Cash to function as a full replacement for a conventional bank account.
On the lending side, HELOCs are coming, as I mentioned earlier. Other loan types outside residential financing may come later as we continue to ask what else wealth management clients need.
The third area is data analytics, especially in the age of AI.
As we capture more information from clients’ core operating accounts, we receive invaluable cash-flow data.
Today’s financial planning process, particularly on the cash-flow side, has room for improvement. When you think about client intake and ongoing monitoring, much of the information is self-reported.
I’ve experienced this myself as the client of an RIA. When I hired my advisor, whom I think is fantastic, I wrote down how much I thought I spent each year. That number was almost certainly wrong.
Every quarter, I check in and report how much I think I spent, whether we’re on plan, and how much we’re saving.
There’s a better way to do that. Technology and AI should be monitoring the data and telling you what’s happening.
That could mean identifying when someone is beginning to drift from the plan and when it’s time to have a conversation.
It could also identify opportunities that frequently arise for high-net-worth clients. Perhaps a client earned more money this year. What opportunities does that create?
How do we become more proactive? How do we use cash-flow data to identify liability- and tax-optimization opportunities?
You’ll see more from us in data analytics and AI-driven optimization. Some of those capabilities are already in beta, and more are coming.
Jack Sharry: Wow. I love it.
I’ve been following the Flourish story, but clearly not closely enough. You have a tiger by the tail, so congratulations.
I love what you’re doing and the story behind it. We talk to many people doing interesting things throughout this industry, and what you’re doing is among the coolest.
Congratulations to you and your colleagues.
Our time is growing short. We try to keep these conversations to about half an hour. This one will probably run longer because you’ve had so many interesting things to share, so thank you for that.
At this point, we like to end on a more personal note.
You’re clearly working very hard. When you’re not at work and you step away from the daily grind, although I’m sure you enjoy every minute of it, how do you spend your time? What do you do to recharge and have fun?
Max Lane: I’m married and have two young boys. One is three-and-a-half years old, and the other is five months old.
Jack Sharry: Wow. Congratulations.
Max Lane: Thank you very much.
Much of my time outside work is spent being a dad, chasing the boys around, and spending time with my wife.
As for how I recharge, I’m a big history buff. I love reading history books, especially books about U.S. history.
On a more personal note, I’m not naturally an extrovert. After a week of running a company, my wife is great about making sure I get an hour or two on the weekend to work out, go for a run, or do something else that allows me to be an introvert and recharge.
That’s how I recharge. I need to be alone for a little while, and I have no problem saying that.
Jack Sharry: Great. Good for you. You should definitely keep doing that.
Max, this has been a wonderful conversation. Thank you so much.
To our audience, thank you for tuning in. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please rate, review, subscribe, and share WealthTech on Deck.
You can find all our episodes at wealthtechondeck.com.
Max, this has been really enjoyable. I appreciate your time and insights. Thank you.
Max Lane: Thanks for the great questions and for having me, Jack. I really appreciate it.
Host: Thanks for listening to this episode of WealthTech on Deck, our ongoing conversation about improving financial outcomes for all.
This podcast is brought to you by SEI and produced by Turncast. Subscribe to future episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
You can connect with our host, Jack Sharry, on LinkedIn. For more information about our perspective on the future of financial advice, visit wealthtechondeck.com.
