MassMutual makes Flourish Cash available to its advisor network

Flourish Cash is now available to MassMutual's network of more than 6,000 financial professionals, RIABiz first reported. The rollout comes about a month after the insurer announced it was giving up control of the cash-management platform.

The service gives those advisors a place for client cash held at banks, with a high-yield rate and FDIC insurance coverage of up to $40 million for a two-person household.

MassMutual announced Sept. 2 that it had offloaded its controlling stake in Flourish to Aquiline Capital Partners. Per RIABiz, the insurer still technically owns the company until later this quarter, when it turns over majority control and retains a minority interest of undisclosed size. The coverage attributes the timing to integration "plumbing" that outlasted the sale.

"This is the perfect time to build on our relationship with Flourish by offering Flourish Cash to our advisor network," said Vaughn Bowman, MassMutual's head of wealth management.

RIABiz reported that Flourish won the account by designing the program to draw in outside assets rather than siphon MassMutual's internal float. That suggests the balances at stake are deposits clients already hold at banks, not the float funding MassMutual's own spread revenue.

Flourish holds more than $8 billion in assets under custody and works with more than 1,300 RIA firms, including Focus Financial, Carson Group and Mariner Wealth Advisors, according to RIABiz. The platform has driven more than $1 billion in net new flows to custodians; the 1,300 partner firms represent more than $2.6 trillion in AUM.