Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweeney alongside
Speaker 1: my co host Matt Miller.
Speaker 2: Every business day we bring you interviews from CEOs, market pros,
Speaker 2: and Bloomberg experts, along with essential market moving news.
Speaker 1: I'm the Bloomberg Markets podcast called Apple Podcasts or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to podcasts, and at Bloomberg dot com Slash podcast.
Speaker 3: Madison Mills and Paul Sweeney here.
Speaker 1: Madison is at the Bloomberg HQ the sixth floor link
Speaker 1: for the Bloomberg invest Conference, and I am down here
Speaker 1: or in Orlando the World Center Marriott at the BNY
Speaker 1: melon Pershing Insight Conference. Two thousand members of the financial
Speaker 1: advice community. They get together every year, learning, inspiration and networking.
Speaker 1: And they are here and I can tell you again
Speaker 1: last night they were networking their hearts out.
Speaker 3: Last night.
Speaker 1: People were going nuts having a good time. It's great
Speaker 1: to see. Joining us right now is Ben Harrison. He's
Speaker 1: had Wealth Solutions at BNY Mellon joining us here. Ben,
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for taking the time here. What I've noticed,
Speaker 1: I've been in the financial services business for over thirty years,
Speaker 1: and I've noticed just a continuous wave of successful wealth
Speaker 1: managers leaving some of the wirehouses going independent.
Speaker 3: Where are we in that trend these days?
Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks for having me, Paul, and I would say
Speaker 4: that we're still, believe it or not, in early days
Speaker 4: of that trend. I mean we've been experiencing it really
Speaker 4: the last fifteen years at BNYL and Pershing. And what
Speaker 4: is driving that I think is obviously a bull market
Speaker 4: for financial advice, but also the end investor really has
Speaker 4: aligned towards the fiduciary independent nature of advice, and there's
Speaker 4: just a ecosystem of providers these days that help make
Speaker 4: it a lot easier.
Speaker 5: When did this switch start?
Speaker 6: And where are we at? Like, whatch inning are we
Speaker 6: at in terms of seeing folks moving independent?
Speaker 1: So Ben's not really catching you, so ye a little
Speaker 1: technical Isshia. Ben's not really hearing Madison from there. She
Speaker 1: was just asking just kind of when did this kind
Speaker 1: of start and why would a financial advisor want to
Speaker 1: go out on his or her own.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 4: So, one of the things that has absolutely powered the
Speaker 4: movement towards independence is obviously the democratization of tools and
Speaker 4: technology that really makes the ability to operate an independent
Speaker 4: practice so much more proficient today. For registered investment advisors
Speaker 4: than it ever was. But I still think that you
Speaker 4: have to start with the investor, and the investor is
Speaker 4: looking for objective, independent advice, and that has really driven
Speaker 4: the community towards an opportunity for investors to really seek
Speaker 4: an advisor that is aligned with them, that sits on
Speaker 4: the same side of the table as them, and has
Speaker 4: access to a broad set of open architecture solutions to
Speaker 4: really provide holistic advice in planning across a spectrum of
Speaker 4: services and move away from being a sales professional to
Speaker 4: one that's on the buy side and really accessing tools
Speaker 4: and solutions on behalf of their clients. One of the
Speaker 4: trends I've noticed just here at this conference this year
Speaker 4: is technology, and boy, if you're a register investment advisor
Speaker 4: at or service provider to them like a BNY melon,
Speaker 4: you've got to be on the cutting edge of technology.
Speaker 4: What are some of the investments that you guys are making,
Speaker 4: some of the tools that you're bringing to the marketplace. Well,
Speaker 4: you're spot on, Paul, and we're in this exhibit hall
Speaker 4: and we're looking around where all these fintech solutions that
Speaker 4: are available and for advisors to be able to utilize
Speaker 4: and implement portfolios and planning and advice for clients. The
Speaker 4: challenge is there's almost so much of it these days
Speaker 4: that it needs to be streamlined, and that's one of
Speaker 4: the things that we are doing at BNY Melon Pershing.
Speaker 4: We launched our Wove platform yesterday, which was really an
Speaker 4: advice platform that helps to bring all of those applications
Speaker 4: together in one common data layer so that we can
Speaker 4: stitch together the different applications to really make an elegant
Speaker 4: experience and really focus on the productivity of the because
Speaker 4: the advisor spends so much time spending their day in
Speaker 4: the in the tools that they're not spending as much
Speaker 4: time as they potentially could with clients. And that's the
Speaker 4: problem that we're off trying Solveware.
Speaker 1: What do you hear most from some of the folks
Speaker 1: you bump into here on the floor. What's a big
Speaker 1: one of the big issues that you're dealing with this week?
Speaker 4: Look this week, I think that it's a common, you know,
Speaker 4: set of challenges that the industry is facing. Advisors really
Speaker 4: want to focus on growth, uh in where they can
Speaker 4: be you know, really gaining that next client. Uh They're
Speaker 4: really thinking about scale and experience scale for their own
Speaker 4: business experience, for their end investors, talent, you know, really
Speaker 4: looking for next generation talent bringing them into their practice.
Speaker 4: We've got over one hundred students here at the event
Speaker 4: this year and that's one of the ways that that
Speaker 4: we help do that. And then there's no shortage of
Speaker 4: you know, challenges in the marketplace in terms of anything
Speaker 4: that could go bump in the night and they've got
Speaker 4: to navigate that.
Speaker 5: Can you talk a little bit.
Speaker 6: Sorry, this is Madison from New York coming back in.
Speaker 6: I hope you can hear me. I was wondering, amazing, Great,
Speaker 6: we're connected. This is great.
Speaker 5: Can you talk to me a little bit about.
Speaker 6: Some of the the clients that you're working with in
Speaker 6: terms of the demo for wove?
Speaker 5: Is this for any advisor? Is it a specific advisor?
Speaker 4: Yeah, So the optimal client profile for a for our
Speaker 4: solution is really a growth minded registered investment advisor, advisor
Speaker 4: of an independent broker dealer that has clients with complexity
Speaker 4: that need a holistic advice deliverable. So anything from planning
Speaker 4: on the front end of the equation towards implementing models
Speaker 4: and separate accounts and advice solutions towards you know, all
Speaker 4: the way on the back end around what that feels
Speaker 4: like from a wealth reporting standpoint and how all of
Speaker 4: the solutions get displayed for an end investor. So it
Speaker 4: actually plays really well to where Paul started, which was
Speaker 4: a advisor that's looking to come out and start their
Speaker 4: own entrepreneurial business to have an end to end solution
Speaker 4: that they can really consume a technology solution from bny
Speaker 4: Mel and Pershing. That's an optimal type of client for us.
Speaker 6: Well, and stepping back a little bit, the wealth management space,
Speaker 6: as you know very well, is huge. Every bank is
Speaker 6: beefing up that side of the business and there's a
Speaker 6: lot of competition. Is this a move from you all
Speaker 6: to set yourselves apart and what do you think is
Speaker 6: the single biggest thing that you're able to point.
Speaker 5: To to set yourselves apart for your offerings?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 4: Well, it is a differentiator strategy and it's something that
Speaker 4: the industry really hasn't had, which is a vertically integrated
Speaker 4: advisory platform and a custodian that Bnymel and Purshing provides.
Speaker 4: So that's a unique differentiator for us and it really
Speaker 4: allows for efficiency, productivity, and best of breed solutions not
Speaker 4: only proprietary solutions from bny Melon, but also open architecture
Speaker 4: access to the best investment managers and tools and technology
Speaker 4: available in the marketplace. So it's kind of a special
Speaker 4: intersection of being open as well as leveraging the largest
Speaker 4: global custodian anywhere in the world, as well as including
Speaker 4: this new fintech type of feel that we have built
Speaker 4: with the advisory platform.
Speaker 1: Do you find that some of the younger advisors, new advisors,
Speaker 1: they lean in more to the technical side of it, because,
Speaker 1: I mean you think about some of the traditional financial advisors,
Speaker 1: whether they're considered themselves stockbrokers from back in the day,
Speaker 1: to asset gatherers. I mean, how's the fintech kind of
Speaker 1: get I guess really integrated into that business.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think.
Speaker 4: That obviously the next generation is leaning into it, but
Speaker 4: I would I wouldn't necessarily confine it there. I would
Speaker 4: say that if you're not growing and evolving and moving
Speaker 4: into this digital space, then it's gonna you're gonna be
Speaker 4: left behind. So we find broad adoption from all walks
Speaker 4: of wealth management leaning into digital and the ability to
Speaker 4: really leverage these tools.
Speaker 6: All right, Well, since you brought up innovation. I am
Speaker 6: forced to ask my favorite question, which is the AI
Speaker 6: elephant in the room. Have you all started discussing AI
Speaker 6: use cases for this technology?
Speaker 3: Absolutely?
Speaker 4: I mean AI is going to absolutely transform our industry
Speaker 4: in the long term. We're thinking about many use cases.
Speaker 4: Even if you think about the use case of our
Speaker 4: own professional staff and how we can build knowledge management
Speaker 4: and you know, really serve our clients more effectively and
Speaker 4: then expose the those tools to our to our advisors
Speaker 4: and to the wealth management firms that work with us.
Speaker 7: It's just going to completely.
Speaker 4: Transform the way in which we serve the business, the
Speaker 4: way in which we can scale and be more productive.
Speaker 4: And that's just scratching the surface on you know, kind
Speaker 4: of the low hanging fruit. Once you start to deploy
Speaker 4: that more, you know, intentionally into the tools, it really
Speaker 4: gets into into industring and you know, again very very
Speaker 4: very early days.
Speaker 7: Yep.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, all right, Ben, thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 1: Really appreciate it. Ben Harrison, he's held of Wealth Solutions
Speaker 1: at B and Y melon joining us here to talk
Speaker 1: about some of the strategies that they're employing here with
Speaker 1: the financial services business in Madison.
Speaker 3: It sounds like he got a good buzz up in
Speaker 3: New York on the sixth floor.
Speaker 5: There is a great buzz.
Speaker 6: Tom Keane is definitely holding court up here with folks
Speaker 6: in the office for Bloomberg invest Day. But it sounds
Speaker 6: like you guys ever having a a lot of activity
Speaker 6: down there in Orlando too.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And again I was talking to some of the
Speaker 1: event organizers down here at this Maria and they're like,
Speaker 1: so it is full blown pre pandemic in terms of
Speaker 1: their overall business, in terms of the conference business, the
Speaker 1: hotel business, as well as this conference.
Speaker 3: So that is good to see.
Speaker 8: You're listening to the team. Ken's are live program Bloomberg
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Speaker 1: Let's go right to our next guest here in Orlando.
Speaker 1: Robin Vince joins us. He's the CEO of BNY Mellon.
Speaker 1: He's responsible for this conference here and really has been
Speaker 1: a fantastic conference and we're getting a lot of energy
Speaker 1: down here. Robin, thanks so much for joining us here.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm looking at it being one I'm old
Speaker 1: enough to remember B and Y standalone, Melon standalone, Pershing standalone.
Speaker 1: Now you guys are together. That sounds big to me.
Speaker 1: Then they read this silly, silly stat that just blew
Speaker 1: me away. You guys touched like twenty percent of the
Speaker 1: investamble assets around the world.
Speaker 3: It's just amazing.
Speaker 1: Force forty six point six trillion assets under custody. That
Speaker 1: amounts to nearly half the world's GDP at the end
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty two. You guys see everything. What are
Speaker 1: you seeing out there in terms of the macro economy
Speaker 1: and kind of where this thing is going?
Speaker 9: Well, Paul, first of all, it's great to be with you,
Speaker 9: and it's great to have you here and the team
Speaker 9: here at our Insight conference because this really is our
Speaker 9: premiere conference for our investor clients. And we're very excited
Speaker 9: because at this conference we've launched some important new products. Look,
Speaker 9: you talk about our breadth, and that really is the
Speaker 9: hallmark of BNY Melon. You reeled off some of the stats.
Speaker 9: I could reel off a ton more. We are relevant
Speaker 9: to our clients. We're all around the world where global
Speaker 9: were deeply penetrated. We power capital markets, both domestically and
Speaker 9: around the world, and what we see and hear from
Speaker 9: our clients is there really is some underlying optimism in
Speaker 9: terms of the medium long term. I hear that internationally
Speaker 9: as well when I talk to international CEOs, particularly about
Speaker 9: the US going forward.
Speaker 1: So but by the way, my favorite fun fact about
Speaker 1: the Bank of New York has the best address on
Speaker 1: Global War Street, which is number one War Street. It's
Speaker 1: such a great, great old institution. Two hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: nine years.
Speaker 9: As your anniversary on yeah Friday, it's our birthday on Friday,
Speaker 9: as we look forward to our two hundred and fortieth
Speaker 9: year founded by Alexander Hamilton, America's all this bank first
Speaker 9: ever company to be listened on the New York Stock Exchange.
Speaker 9: It really is a super exciting history. But we're also
Speaker 9: very much looking to the forward because one of the
Speaker 9: things that we've seen across our franchise is we have
Speaker 9: this incredible client base.
Speaker 7: We have all of these incredible assets.
Speaker 9: You reeled off a few of the stats, but two
Speaker 9: and a half trillion dollars a day, we have two payments,
Speaker 9: we have two point three trillion dollars of invested assets
Speaker 9: on our pershing platform. We're a one point nine trillion
Speaker 9: dollar asset manager. We have all of these hidden facets
Speaker 9: to ourselves that we haven't fully leveraged as a breadth
Speaker 9: of a company, and we are now unlocking that for
Speaker 9: our clients. And right here as we sit here today
Speaker 9: in Orlando at our Insight conference, we are launching new
Speaker 9: product capabilities because that's the innovation for the future that'll
Speaker 9: power us for the next two hundred and thirty nine years.
Speaker 1: Talk to us about some of these new products and services.
Speaker 1: We've had a lot of your folks and Bny Melon
Speaker 1: Pershing on here talking about a lot of different things.
Speaker 1: What from your perspective some of the interesting new products
Speaker 1: and services you guys are launching.
Speaker 9: Well, as a whole company, we're doing a whole bunch
Speaker 9: of different things. We've recently launched an outsource trading capability.
Speaker 9: We are innovating in real time payments. That's going to
Speaker 9: be part of the new payment ecosystem of the United States.
Speaker 9: But right here in Pershing, what we're most excited about
Speaker 9: is our first product launch in our new business, Pershing X.
Speaker 9: Pershing X is a business where we hired the first
Speaker 9: person employee number one twenty months ago and from that
Speaker 9: starting point. We had hands on keyboards in April of
Speaker 9: last year, and now we are in market with wove,
Speaker 9: which we've launched here at the conference. That's an exciting
Speaker 9: new capability for advisors, making wealth advisors lives easier by
Speaker 9: connecting the various dots of their ecosystem.
Speaker 7: Super exciting product.
Speaker 1: It seems like when you talk to the financial advisors
Speaker 1: that you have here or talk to some of the
Speaker 1: people at at BNY Melon Purshing, it's kind of all
Speaker 1: about technology. If you're not on the front end of
Speaker 1: that technology curve, whether you're a provider like BNY Melon
Speaker 1: Purging or a registered investment advisor out there, you're really
Speaker 1: putting yourself kind of behind the apall.
Speaker 3: A little bit.
Speaker 9: The ability to spend on technology is clearly a competitive
Speaker 9: differentiated these days. We spend about three and a half
Speaker 9: billion dollars on tech every year as a company, and
Speaker 9: one of the things that we give our clients is
Speaker 9: that the benefit of that scale. And so if you're
Speaker 9: a wealth advisor client, here is just one example of
Speaker 9: that client base. We have AI running on the platform
Speaker 9: giving our wealth advisors next best advice for our clients
Speaker 9: so that they can be smart with their clients. They
Speaker 9: can give them good advice. We predict fails in different
Speaker 9: parts of the market. We have other innovations, but and
Speaker 9: we spend a lot of money on the resid brilliancy
Speaker 9: of our tech infrastructure as well. These days, you've got
Speaker 9: to be able to be resilient, and so the scale
Speaker 9: of being a jesib as we are a globally systemic bank,
Speaker 9: and the scale of breadth.
Speaker 7: Of our products really allows us to do that.
Speaker 9: And it allows us to wrap ourselves around our clients
Speaker 9: and help them so they don't have to go spend
Speaker 9: all that money themselves.
Speaker 1: Some investors in the banks are a little concerned about
Speaker 1: what maybe a creeping regulatory headwind for the banks. How
Speaker 1: do you think about it for your business, whether it's
Speaker 1: more capital needed to be put up or just you know,
Speaker 1: tighter regulations. We had some of the regional banks have
Speaker 1: some trouble several weeks ago, and that kind of I
Speaker 1: guess just renewed some interesting concern among maybe some regulators.
Speaker 7: Well, I think we've got to do to start with
Speaker 7: on this.
Speaker 9: You've got to look back fifteen years we had a
Speaker 9: very significant event with a global financial crisis, and I
Speaker 9: think regulators and policymakers did a really good job investing
Speaker 9: in the resilience of the financial markets, and particularly in
Speaker 9: the JESIBS, and so being one of the eight gesibs
Speaker 9: in the US, you know, we are subject to those
Speaker 9: higher capital standards, those high liquidity standards, and you've seen
Speaker 9: the benefit fit of all of that resiliency play out
Speaker 9: over the course of the next few of the past
Speaker 9: few months, and so you know, I think what we'll
Speaker 9: likely see is is reaction to what's happened, and policymakers
Speaker 9: and regulators will be thoughtful about where in the system
Speaker 9: maybe those same protections didn't exist, and I imagine there'll
Speaker 9: be new policies, but sort of reacting to that. But
Speaker 9: for us as we sit here today, you know, we
Speaker 9: viewed resilience as a commercial asset. I talked about it
Speaker 9: in the context of technology being able to invest in scale,
Speaker 9: but it's true for the balance sheet as well, you know,
Speaker 9: highly liquid, highly rated, conservative on these things.
Speaker 7: It makes a difference.
Speaker 1: One of the things we've heard as a just a
Speaker 1: theme here over the last couple of days here in
Speaker 1: Orlando is diversity. Diversity and the financial services industry broadly
Speaker 1: define whether it's at the advisory level or with a
Speaker 1: corporate level. You guys actually did a bond that kind
Speaker 1: of brought that home a bond issue and talk to
Speaker 1: us about that.
Speaker 9: Yeah, it's a super super thing that we that we
Speaker 9: did with our clients, and it was really our clients
Speaker 9: who did it and actually had its origins at our
Speaker 9: Pershing conference last year when we when we have a
Speaker 9: group of our Pershing clients who are minority owned, women owned,
Speaker 9: and veteran owned institutions who said to us that they
Speaker 9: could lead one of our bonds. And it wasn't just
Speaker 9: participating as a co manager, it was left lead. It
Speaker 9: was lead managers and they solely led this deal and
Speaker 9: just did a terrific job. And what we've done in
Speaker 9: that together is they have become credentialized even more that
Speaker 9: they can lead a transaction and now when they go
Speaker 9: out to their other corporate clients, the credentialized with that
Speaker 9: and it was our ability to help them do that.
Speaker 7: That's how we lift everybody up. That's important.
Speaker 3: Good stuff.
Speaker 1: Robin, thanks so much for taking the time. I know
Speaker 1: you're busy here at this big conference. Robert Vince, he's
Speaker 1: the CEO of b n y Mellon joining us to
Speaker 1: talk about all things Melon. Lots of technology changes, lots
Speaker 1: of technology investments. BNY Melling Purging Insight Conference twenty three.
Speaker 1: Twenty five hundred financial advisors gathered here to kind of
Speaker 1: get the latest on the new trends in the business,
Speaker 1: maybe learn a thing or two from colleague in from
Speaker 1: the speakers here, and kind of stay make sure they
Speaker 1: have the best service for their clients.
Speaker 8: You're listening to the tape. Catch our live program Bloomberg
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Speaker 3: Madison Mills and York.
Speaker 1: Paul Sweeney in Orlando to BNY Mellon Purshing Insight Conference.
Speaker 1: We just heard from Robin Vince, the CEO of BNY Mellon.
Speaker 1: He did a pretty good job. We'll have him back,
Speaker 1: I think. But now we get to the people who
Speaker 1: actually get stuff done. Jim Crowley, Chief executive Officer and
Speaker 1: Chair of the Executive Committee for Pershing and Emmy Schlosser,
Speaker 1: COO for Pershing join us here at the down in Orlando.
Speaker 1: Thanks folks for stopping by here. Hey, Jim, I remember
Speaker 1: when Pershing was a standalone company. I remember when deal
Speaker 1: J bought it, and then I was a credit Swiss
Speaker 1: first Boston when we bought that. That lasted about fifteen minutes.
Speaker 1: But I'm glad you guys are all now together with
Speaker 1: Bny and Mel. Good stuff, Jim, talk to me about
Speaker 1: this conference here, A lot of new project product launches
Speaker 1: for you guys, you know, servicing your financial services clients.
Speaker 1: Talk to us about WHOA that's a name I've heard
Speaker 1: a lot about just about that.
Speaker 3: What does it mean for you? What does it mean
Speaker 3: for your clients?
Speaker 10: Yeah, this is the moment for WOVE.
Speaker 11: It has been a couple of years in the making,
Speaker 11: and we're so excited to be launching this new advisory
Speaker 11: tool and platform too. You know, as Ainsley has spoken about,
Speaker 11: to create the interoperability of all the disconnected technology that's
Speaker 11: out there and having advisors productivity be their.
Speaker 10: KPI is such a cool thing for us.
Speaker 11: And to have such a great welcome from everyone here
Speaker 11: at Insight.
Speaker 1: So is Wolf here kind of Emily, just is it
Speaker 1: a way for financial advisors? There's so many things I
Speaker 1: have to think about, and you know, different asset classes,
Speaker 1: a different reporting requirements.
Speaker 3: So what does wolve kind of do for them?
Speaker 12: Yeah, it's essentially the technology tool in which they can live.
Speaker 12: Advisors spend seventy percent of their time today doing administrative
Speaker 12: tasks across disjointed tools, and Wove is out to solve
Speaker 12: that problem. It is a single place where they'll have
Speaker 12: applications for everything that they need to do, from CRM
Speaker 12: to financial planning, portfolio construction and management, data insights, reporting,
Speaker 12: billing all comes together through WOVE. All of those applications
Speaker 12: I just mentioned are fully interoperable, interconnected. Data is shared
Speaker 12: across all of them. You will only enter data once
Speaker 12: and it feeds across all the applications. So it really
Speaker 12: is out to help advisors be more productive. Its mission
Speaker 12: is to help advisors help more people.
Speaker 1: So, Jim, I've been just amazed really over last I
Speaker 1: don't know, twenty twenty five years to see this constant
Speaker 1: flow of financial advisors leave some of the bigger shops,
Speaker 1: the wirehouses for example, go out on their own here
Speaker 1: and at Pershing that's you serve those people.
Speaker 3: So what are you seeing in a current trends today?
Speaker 1: I see twenty five hundred these folks roaming around the
Speaker 1: hall here today.
Speaker 3: What are you seeing in terms of those trends?
Speaker 11: Well, the breakaway trend is still on the upswing. We believe,
Speaker 11: we still believe that there's great opportunity for people who
Speaker 11: want to own and operate their own business and have
Speaker 11: more freedom of choice. In fact, it's one of the
Speaker 11: principles of how we operate our platform, Paul, which is
Speaker 11: we provide advisors with a turnkey platform so they can
Speaker 11: break away land here safely, be on a technology stack
Speaker 11: that Emily just well described with Wove, and have freedom
Speaker 11: of choice around product selection that they as fiduciaries and
Speaker 11: as advisors need in order to serve their clients.
Speaker 6: And am I on sorry guys, okay, perfect, perfect, Sorry
Speaker 6: about that, Emily. I want to go back to you
Speaker 6: because you were talking about the time savings that this
Speaker 6: is allowing for some of your clients.
Speaker 5: Do you have any examples of something.
Speaker 6: That you know one of your advisors has been able
Speaker 6: to do more effectively because of the time saving.
Speaker 12: Yeah, Look, you can go within WOVE right from a
Speaker 12: financial plan to directly creating the portfolio that's going to
Speaker 12: allow you to reach the goals that you've set with
Speaker 12: your client. That then, by the way, automatically takes into
Speaker 12: account tax optimization and gives you access to all of
Speaker 12: the financial solutions that you want to feed into that portfolio.
Speaker 12: I mean, it follows right on the path without having
Speaker 12: to swivel between different tools and technology. It's a much
Speaker 12: more seamless experience, and it encourages advisors to use all
Speaker 12: aspects so that they're not just focused on portfolio construction.
Speaker 12: That they are taking the time to do that planning
Speaker 12: with their clients, which is so valuable to the end investor.
Speaker 11: And TEX optimization is a great example when an advisor
Speaker 11: wants to transition a client to a new portfolio, what
Speaker 11: is that client's tolerance level from a tax perspective, and
Speaker 11: Wolf gives them the tools in order to model that
Speaker 11: very efficiently.
Speaker 1: So looking you know here Pershing X, we've heard a
Speaker 1: lot about that, and you guys have a strategy I
Speaker 1: guess for this year simply scale and serve.
Speaker 3: What does that mean, Emily?
Speaker 12: Yeah, So at Pershing our mission is to simplify, scale
Speaker 12: and serve to build on that a little bit. We
Speaker 12: are working to simplify the complex. A large part of
Speaker 12: how we're doing that is through technology. I think Wolve
Speaker 12: is a really good example of that. We've just talked
Speaker 12: about the productivity that it drives because it is a simplified,
Speaker 12: single ecosystem for advisors to live in. We're looking to
Speaker 12: scale to grow. We have the most kind of stable,
Speaker 12: resilient platform. Last year, on a single day, we processed
Speaker 12: four point eight million trades, and our commitment to our
Speaker 12: clients is that they will never outgrow our platform. And
Speaker 12: then finally, we're looking to serve to delight. We think
Speaker 12: it's a critical differentiator for us to really be at
Speaker 12: the cutting edge of service. Quite honestly, I think it's
Speaker 12: an area where our whole industry lags, and I think
Speaker 12: it's it's really what our clients ultimately deserve a need.
Speaker 11: And Paul, if you just looked around the expo here,
Speaker 11: you can see all the exhibitors and see the complexity
Speaker 11: in the system. And so when Emily speaks about simplifying
Speaker 11: the complex, that's exactly what.
Speaker 10: She's speaking about.
Speaker 11: And if you really pull back and want and take
Speaker 11: a look at what we do on an annual basis.
Speaker 11: Our capex in twenty twenty three is reinvesting seventy five
Speaker 11: percent of our capex into simplifying the complex, So we
Speaker 11: believe it really is one of the key pillar source strategy.
Speaker 6: Well, on that note, Jim, sticking with you here, what
Speaker 6: are you hearing on the ground in Orlando that is
Speaker 6: changing your thinking is at all about Wove and what
Speaker 6: you want to do next?
Speaker 10: Well, it's what we're hearing on the ground is.
Speaker 11: And that's a great comment because we really want to
Speaker 11: listen to what our clients are saying.
Speaker 10: They're giving us feedback constantly.
Speaker 11: On the order of operation of how we introduce new
Speaker 11: technology into the Wove platform. And what we believe in
Speaker 11: is we believe in this connectivity, we believe in this interoperability,
Speaker 11: we believe in having data moved seamlessly across these different
Speaker 11: applications with an ecosystem. And we're not going to be
Speaker 11: fullhearted or chase the hot dot, if you will, by
Speaker 11: adding new things unless we believe they do other things
Speaker 11: that Emily just spoke about simplifying the complex and scaling
Speaker 11: and enhancing the service model.
Speaker 1: And Emily, one of the terms that every single company
Speaker 1: in the S and P five hundred mentioned on their
Speaker 1: conference call last quarter was AI. Whether you an ice
Speaker 1: cream company or a technology company, you have to weave
Speaker 1: AI into your conversation if no other reason, to get
Speaker 1: your stock multiple up Artificial intelligence for your business. I
Speaker 1: would think there are so many applications. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: super early days.
Speaker 3: I guess, how are you guys thinking about that?
Speaker 13: Yeah, it's early.
Speaker 12: Days for some of the newer aspects of AI around
Speaker 12: large language models and generative AI. But AI has been
Speaker 12: around for a while and it's very heavily embedded in
Speaker 12: our platforms. When you use our custodial application, it is
Speaker 12: embedded in the search. You can actually navigate our whole
Speaker 12: platform using natural language. It is heavily embedded in pershing X,
Speaker 12: and if you think about the possibilities of it, it's
Speaker 12: almost mind blowing. I mean, I talked about serve as
Speaker 12: being one of our big pillars. If you could imagine
Speaker 12: a world in which our service model was very self
Speaker 12: service for our clients and they were almost pulling up
Speaker 12: something like a chat GPT and being able to kind
Speaker 12: of find whatever answers they want from all the data
Speaker 12: that they have on our platform. It's not that far away,
Speaker 12: and that's pretty awesome.
Speaker 1: Jim, we've got about a minute left here. You're the
Speaker 1: CEO here. What's the biggest challenge for you when you
Speaker 1: go talk to the big boss? What do you tell
Speaker 1: him is kind of something that you're a little concerned
Speaker 1: about going forward?
Speaker 10: Well, it's my focus is really on two things. It's
Speaker 10: talent and execution.
Speaker 11: So when I talk to the big Boss, he really
Speaker 11: is asking me how are we doing because we are
Speaker 11: making a pretty significant investment in this particular product launch
Speaker 11: with Wove and in our platform most specifically. So he's
Speaker 11: focused on execution, and I'm really focused on talent as well.
Speaker 11: I need to have a team around me that is
Speaker 11: not only diverse, but really focused on all the things
Speaker 11: that we need to do and very complimentary to the
Speaker 11: skills that I have.
Speaker 1: All right, guys, really appreciate you taking the time. Guys
Speaker 1: throw a good conference here. Appreciate it. Jim Crowley, chief
Speaker 1: executive Officer and Chair of the Executive Committee for Pershing
Speaker 1: and Emily Schlosser, COO of person joining us life here
Speaker 1: on site here, So some good stuff here. Lots of
Speaker 1: you know, twenty five hundred financial advisors run and around here,
Speaker 1: trying to get a little bit smarter about their business,
Speaker 1: doing a little networking, and I contellue they do some
Speaker 1: serious networking at night down here in Orlando, Florida. So
Speaker 1: the good stuff there, market's not much happening.
Speaker 3: What else is new? S and P five hundred absolutely
Speaker 3: unched on the day.
Speaker 8: You're listening to the team Ken's are Live program Bloomberg
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Speaker 1: Madison Mills in New York City at the Bloomberg invest
Speaker 1: Conference at the sixth floor of Bloomberg Global HQ.
Speaker 3: Interviewing a lot of great people there.
Speaker 1: I'm down here in Orlando, live from the World Center
Speaker 1: Maria in Orlando, Florida.
Speaker 3: BNY Melon Pershing Insight Conference.
Speaker 1: Lots of financial advisors running around here, trying to get
Speaker 1: a little bit smarter about the wealth management business.
Speaker 3: One of the businesses that these.
Speaker 1: Folks at BNY Melon Pershing are talking a lot about
Speaker 1: at this conference is Pershing X. I need to know
Speaker 1: a little bit more about what's going on in Pershing
Speaker 1: X and how it's working for these wealth managers. So
Speaker 1: I figured let's get employeed number one at Pershing X.
Speaker 1: Ainsley Simmons, president of Pershing X Droids, is here. Ainsley,
Speaker 1: what is Pershing X. What are you guys trying to
Speaker 1: what need in the market you trying to fill?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 14: So Pershing X is a fintech inside of the Bank
Speaker 14: of New York Mellon that was started about a year
Speaker 14: and a half ago. And as you said, I was
Speaker 14: employee number one, so I know the whole journey. It
Speaker 14: is here to build and continuously improve a new wealth
Speaker 14: management platform, which we actually announced yesterday, okay, called Wolf
Speaker 14: And what Wolve is here to do is to make
Speaker 14: an advisor's day more productive by providing a way to
Speaker 14: connect applications so they don't have to swell a chair.
Speaker 6: And jumping in here from New York, Ainsley, talk to
Speaker 6: me about how you are measuring success for the platform,
Speaker 6: given that you were part of the founding of it.
Speaker 5: What is success looking like for you?
Speaker 14: Yeah, So we center all of our decisions around what
Speaker 14: we put in woe of and how it works and
Speaker 14: how it's going to scale around advisor productivity. You know,
Speaker 14: I said yesterday from the stage, and it's absolutely true.
Speaker 14: Our KPI, what we are going to measure our success
Speaker 14: on is how much time we give back to advisors
Speaker 14: so that they can help their clients or just use
Speaker 14: that time to prospect or grow revenue or you know,
Speaker 14: work on their practice. You know, there's so many more
Speaker 14: productive things that they could be doing then, you know,
Speaker 14: retyping data and you know, learning new systems. So we're
Speaker 14: really focused on that productivity KPI. We've built the measurement
Speaker 14: of that into the platform and as advisors adopt, we'll
Speaker 14: be able to help share with them how they're doing
Speaker 14: and help them with new ideas on how to be
Speaker 14: more productive. You know, we think the promise of software
Speaker 14: hasn't resulted in the leverage business leverage that advisors had
Speaker 14: hoped for because of this lack of interconnectivity.
Speaker 13: So that's that's one hundred percent what we're focused on.
Speaker 1: Do financial advisors buy and large, do they embrace technology?
Speaker 14: Yeah, I mean I think you know, listen, I've been
Speaker 14: in this business for a while on the tech side,
Speaker 14: and you know what has gone from and if we
Speaker 14: need technology in our practice, it is now to and
Speaker 14: absolutely we need technology in our practice, and I think
Speaker 14: advisors very much see the value clients are demanding, you know,
Speaker 14: really good and elegant client experiences. So they're there, They're
Speaker 14: one hundred percent there. I think what's so frustrating for
Speaker 14: them though, as they have to hop across seven, eight, nine, ten,
Speaker 14: sometimes fifteen different pieces of technology. And I mean, imagine
Speaker 14: your own life if you didn't have an operating system
Speaker 14: on your phone and every app you went to look
Speaker 14: at was so one hundred percent completely different. There was
Speaker 14: no common alerts, there were no common search elements like it.
Speaker 13: Just that's exhausting.
Speaker 14: It takes too hard to it takes too much to learn,
Speaker 14: you know, adoption is hard. You know, they feel like
Speaker 14: they need a manual, and you know, that's just not
Speaker 14: where we are in technology in our daily life, and
Speaker 14: it's not where they should be in technology, in serving
Speaker 14: clients and helping them create wealth in their lives.
Speaker 6: When we talk about technology, it feels like we always
Speaker 6: have the same conversation whenever there's a new innovation. We
Speaker 6: worried that the internet was going to take jobs away.
Speaker 6: Now we're doing the same thing with AI. What's your
Speaker 6: thinking on the cost benefit analysis of AI as a
Speaker 6: tool versus as something that's going to be a headwind.
Speaker 14: Yeah, you know, I think obviously goes without saying we're
Speaker 14: in very early days of what AI can do. But
Speaker 14: you know, if there is a tool that can help
Speaker 14: you parse through large data sets or help you, you know,
Speaker 14: get smart about a topic in a very short period
Speaker 14: of time, I mean I see people wanting to adopt
Speaker 14: that kind of thing, just because nobody wants to have
Speaker 14: to work as hard as we have to work sometimes
Speaker 14: just to get you know, marketing for me, or get inform,
Speaker 14: you know, get prepared for a client meeting. So I
Speaker 14: think there's going to be lots of terrific applications in
Speaker 14: our business.
Speaker 13: You know, I don't think and I've maintained this.
Speaker 14: View for many, many, many many years, and I believe
Speaker 14: I've gone on record saying this many times. I don't
Speaker 14: think there is a disintermediation disintermediation of advisors anytime in
Speaker 14: our near future, because money is incredibly personal and people
Speaker 14: have to have a really high which most advisors, almost
Speaker 14: all advisors do, are really high eq to help people
Speaker 14: through financial decisions, and a computer just can't do that.
Speaker 1: Talk to us a little bit about diversity in the
Speaker 1: wealth management business. How do you guys think about that,
Speaker 1: because we've heard a couple of folks raise that as
Speaker 1: a them need to do a better job in terms
Speaker 1: of the diversity within the wealth management side of financial services.
Speaker 14: Yeah, I mean, I think the leading firms out there
Speaker 14: understand that, you know, their clients are diverse, and so
Speaker 14: their firms need to be diverse. I've met, you know,
Speaker 14: lots and lots and lots of different clients over the
Speaker 14: next over the last few days, and you know, the
Speaker 14: ones that I know are really leading, are leading, leading
Speaker 14: into women as investors, leading into other communities as investors,
Speaker 14: and they're really seeing that wealth is not being concentrated
Speaker 14: in the ways it was in the past. And I
Speaker 14: think those firms ultimately will win because that, you know,
Speaker 14: I hate to say it, you got to go where
Speaker 14: the money is, and the money is shifting, and you know,
Speaker 14: the face of an investor is shifted. I mean, if
Speaker 14: if you're an advisor and you haven't realized that most
Speaker 14: of the billionaires that are being created in America right
Speaker 14: now are tech founders and they probably don't look anything
Speaker 14: like your traditional client, you're missing the boat.
Speaker 6: In our final forty five seconds, or so with you, Ainsley,
Speaker 6: can you talk to me about some of the challenges
Speaker 6: that might lie ahead for that inclusion and diversity and
Speaker 6: do you think that there's been adoption across the board.
Speaker 6: Does everybody get it by now or are you still
Speaker 6: seeing some challenge on that.
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 14: No, I mean not everybody gets anything, so you know,
Speaker 14: I think that would be sort of hyperbolic to say that,
Speaker 14: you know, you could expect everybody to get something.
Speaker 13: But again, as I said, I think they're really smart.
Speaker 14: Firms see where wealth is, they see where it's headed,
Speaker 14: and you know, they want to prepare so that their
Speaker 14: business continue continue to grow and develop in the future.
Speaker 13: You know.
Speaker 14: Robin our, CEO of the Bank of New York Mellon,
Speaker 14: talked about some things we're doing to you know, bring
Speaker 14: new bond issuances from you know, different communities into the marketplace.
Speaker 14: I mean, there's so many ways in which the capital
Speaker 14: markets can can be reflecting, frankly, the face of America,
Speaker 14: and I think, you know, good things are happening in
Speaker 14: a lot of places.
Speaker 13: There's obviously more to be done.
Speaker 3: Angeie, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Angeley Simmons Pershing ex president the Fintech within the B
Speaker 1: and Y Melon Pershing.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Markets podcast. You can
Speaker 2: subscribe and listen to interviews at Apple Podcasts or whatever
Speaker 2: podcast platform you prefer. I'm Matt Miller. I'm on Twitter
Speaker 2: at Matt Miller nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 3: And I'm Fall Sweeney. I'm on Twitter at pt Sweeney.
Speaker 1: Before the podcast, you can always catch us worldwide at
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio