Customer: H&R Block

For decades, H&R Block has helped people navigate some of the most complex moments in their financial lives. With Spruce, the company is extending that role beyond tax season and into everyday money management.

We sat down with John Thompson, VP of Financial Services at H&R Block, to talk about what Spruce is designed to do, what they’re learning from customers, and how partnerships like Plaid support their mission to help people achieve financial freedom.


Plaid: Tell us about Spruce. What makes it different from other mobile banking tools?

John: Spruce is a mobile banking app built to help our customers improve their financial health. What sets Spruce apart is that it helps our customers be better savers every day. Every customer gets a free savings account and a high APY to improve their savings outcomes.

Part of why we built Spruce is because customers were telling us they want more help in their daily financial life—from a brand, a company, and people they trust. That was really the driver for us, figuring out how we could answer these questions customers are asking.

Plaid: What have you learned about your customers and their financial needs since launching Spruce?

John: Information is power, but insights are a superpower. When we can create visibility into what's happening in someone’s daily financial life, we help them build confidence. And that confidence is necessary for improving financial health.

Younger customers are a big part of our user base, so we’ve learned a lot about them as well. They are incredibly capable, but they may lack context and of course, experience. They’re just starting to build habits around spending, saving, and reducing debt.

The most important thing we can provide is consistent access to information and trends.

Our younger customers often use our spending categorization and watchlist features to track their spending over time. They use automated savings tools to help fulfill the promises they've made to themselves and get closer to their goals.

Plaid: What impact is Spruce having on its customers?

John: We’re helping our customers make small but noticeable improvements in their financial health. They're becoming better spenders, savers, borrowers, and planners using the capabilities and information they find in the app.

Second, Spruce is changing the perception of H&R Block. Often, when we talk to customers, they're surprised Spruce came from this company. They thought H&R Block was just for their parents, or only for taxes. Spruce is showing our customers that we can work with them every day, every hour—not just once a year.

Plaid: What’s the biggest challenge in helping people manage their finances?

John: First, unpredictability. Most customers experience significant spikes and dips in income and expenses throughout the year, and often those two things don’t align. When we can help customers get ahead of those problems, or anticipate them, we can help them prepare.

Second, everything in a person’s financial life is interconnected—spending, saving, borrowing, planning. You have to be capable and confident in all of these areas; otherwise, everything else suffers. If you’re a great spender but bad at borrowing, the equation is out of balance. If you’re an excellent planner but can’t control spending, the equation is out of balance.

Plaid: How does H&R Block think about choosing the right partners?

John: We really look for partners that align with our mission and positively impact our customers.

Our ambition as a company is to enable customers to achieve financial freedom through trust and technology. Plaid is one of the key enablers of that, and they’re quickly becoming one of H&R Block’s most important partners. We use Plaid to accelerate the movement of money, protect against fraud, and create more personalized experiences.

While there are general rules of thumb and norms to being financially healthy, every single person's financial life is a little bit different. Plaid's data and insights create a fuller financial picture. That really helps us build an application that is tailored to the individual.

When our customers work with Spruce, we are excited to have them actually interact with a Plaid experience too. Our customers know and trust Plaid, and that trust carries into the Spruce experience.

Plaid: If you could give your younger self one piece of financial advice, what would it be?

John: I definitely would’ve taken $1,000 and bought Bitcoin in 2011. It’d be worth a lot more by now.

Seriously though, I wish more young people understood the importance of getting the foundations and basic behaviors right very early. The things that feel small, the daily behaviors, ultimately become big. The act of saving a little or paying attention to trends is meaningful now and builds habits for later. So stick with it. Learn every day.

And most importantly: invest in yourself. Invest in your knowledge and confidence and in your short-term and long-term savings.

Plaid: So, what’s next for Spruce?

John: So far, we’ve been working with our customers on spending and saving. Now we’re about to open new doors into investing, lending, and other areas, so we can start addressing more aspects of our customers’ financial lives.

Imagine you’re doing your taxes with H&R Block and learn that a small retirement contribution could improve your refund. With one click, you open a retirement account in Spruce, your refund is routed into it, and you claim a 50% retirement saver’s match. That’s the power of integration between Spruce and H&R Block.

But really, at the end of the day, it’s about listening to our customers—understanding their needs, and building tools that help them improve their financial health and achieve financial freedom. We’ll be following their lead.

The Spruce fintech platform is built by H&R Block, which is not a bank. Bank products by Pathward®, N.A., Member FDIC. See sprucemoney.com for details.