Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news, IMFN. World Bank Annual
Speaker 1: Meetings are now underway in Washington, DC, and that brings
Speaker 1: together finance ministers, central bankers, and a lot of big
Speaker 1: policymakers to that town. And of course it also brings
Speaker 1: a lot of the big bank CEOs as well, discussions
Speaker 1: about the global economy, fiscal policy, as well as regulation.
Speaker 1: Please to say that one of those big CEOs joins
Speaker 1: us right now, Robin Vince heads be and why the
Speaker 1: oldest bank in America and one of the biggest custodians
Speaker 1: of assets in the world. He's sitting down right now
Speaker 1: alongside our bury own Lisa Abramowitz.
Speaker 2: Lisa, thank you so much.
Speaker 3: Romain.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the confab of everyone in finance and
Speaker 2: politics and policymaking. And we have someone who has the
Speaker 2: first loan made to the United States when it was
Speaker 2: written up in seventeen eighty nine during the time of
Speaker 2: Alexander Hamilton. Robin Vince, thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2: I want to start with the sort of dueling ideas here.
Speaker 2: We're talking about the election, the uncertainty. Heard from Romaine
Speaker 2: and Scarlett about maybe it's going to be a week
Speaker 2: before we know the outcome. What does this mean is
Speaker 2: the US getting more isolated, and yet people seem very
Speaker 2: enthusiastic about the US and investing in this economy. Can
Speaker 2: you explain how much you're hearing that?
Speaker 3: Well, there's certainly been a theme here at the IMF
Speaker 3: World Bank meetings, and that's been true, particularly actually from
Speaker 3: foreign clients that I've been talking to foreign policymakers. There's
Speaker 3: frankly a lot of envy about just how well the
Speaker 3: US economy has performed over the course of the past
Speaker 3: two or three years. It wasn't necessarily the expectation that
Speaker 3: we would have an economy today that has actually been
Speaker 3: performing quite well. Now it doesn't perform as well for everybody,
Speaker 3: and that is clearly an issue that the politicians are
Speaker 3: grappling with. But for those participants in the stock market,
Speaker 3: it's been a boom for companies that have been investing
Speaker 3: in the US. They've been able to benefit from the
Speaker 3: various strengths of the US offers, energy independence, having a
Speaker 3: little bit of light industrial policy in the US, labor technology,
Speaker 3: those things have been a real benefit and a tailwind
Speaker 3: for the US economy.
Speaker 2: There's an issue here where people are talking about maybe
Speaker 2: the US is going to lose its supremacy in some
Speaker 2: of these areas, especially given the amount of debt that
Speaker 2: the United States has and the fact that it will
Speaker 2: probably have to issue more and the deficit is getting
Speaker 2: a lot deeper. As someone who sees a lot of
Speaker 2: the transactions, who processes the transactions of Treasury trades and
Speaker 2: works with the Federal Reserve, how much are you seeing this?
Speaker 3: Well? People do talk, for sure about the fact we
Speaker 3: have to be humble about the fact that the world
Speaker 3: can change pretty quickly, and we've had enough reminders of
Speaker 3: that over the past decade that one has to plan
Speaker 3: for the future, but one also has to prepare for
Speaker 3: the worst, and that's good sensible approach to leading a business.
Speaker 3: We talk to our clients all the time about that
Speaker 3: looking around the corners. Don't assume that rates are going
Speaker 3: to move in a certain direction. They could surprise us.
Speaker 3: Having said all of that, the benefits that the US
Speaker 3: has right now are considerable, and that is what we
Speaker 3: are hearing from our clients. That is what we talk
Speaker 3: to other policymakers about. Growth really matters at the end
Speaker 3: of the day for a nation's prosperity. Being able to
Speaker 3: grow GDP, being able to include as many people as
Speaker 3: possible in that growth. But you have to have the
Speaker 3: growth in order to be able to include people. And
Speaker 3: so in Europe they're talking about social programs, they're talking
Speaker 3: about challenges that takes growth in order to be able
Speaker 3: to pay for it. And so as strong economy is
Speaker 3: a really valuable benefit to be able to unlock all
Speaker 3: of those other things. Now, you're right, deficits matter a lot,
Speaker 3: and in the US we're going to have to confront that.
Speaker 3: Other countries have already had to confront those challenges. But
Speaker 3: we have certain advantages in the US, particularly the fact
Speaker 3: that we're a reserve currency that we have the US treasuries,
Speaker 3: is that that sort of risk free reference rate instrument
Speaker 3: of choice. Those are again advantages, can't be taken for granted,
Speaker 3: can't be complacent, but things that have been helpful to
Speaker 3: the United States.
Speaker 1: Robin Well, just to pick up on that point, with
Speaker 1: the election less than two weeks away here in the US,
Speaker 1: are there policy proposals, policy prescriptions that you've heard from
Speaker 1: either of the candidates that you'd think that B and
Speaker 1: Y needs to prepare for now rather than later.
Speaker 3: Well, We're always preparing. It's our job to do that.
Speaker 3: We help our clients prepare. It's our platforms that ultimately
Speaker 3: our clients look to in order to be able to
Speaker 3: move forward. The work that we do in the treasury
Speaker 3: market is a great example. And so to be specific
Speaker 3: for a second, both sides of the aisle have talked
Speaker 3: about wanting to be able to spend more. It is
Speaker 3: likely under both plans that deficits would raise, and so
Speaker 3: with that need to be able to pay for it,
Speaker 3: and so making sure that we're prepared, our platforms are
Speaker 3: prepared to be able to handle more treasuries. We settle
Speaker 3: twenty trillion dollars worth of treasuries earlier this week on
Speaker 3: our platforms, and so that's got to be able to scale.
Speaker 3: We feel comfortable we can. I think in the US
Speaker 3: treasury market in particular, one of the important things is
Speaker 3: going to be the question of where the buyer is
Speaker 3: going to be because there are a lot of governments
Speaker 3: looking to raise funds, the US among them, but not
Speaker 3: the only one, and the private sector wants to fund
Speaker 3: as well. Remember we've got an energy transition, to invest
Speaker 3: in data centers, to pay for infrastructure, to pay for
Speaker 3: the focus on the grid and all of the work
Speaker 3: that's going to be required for that. Those things cost money,
Speaker 3: that's financing and we need buyers for that.
Speaker 1: So then circling back then to your own business and
Speaker 1: the growth, particularly that we saw out of the last
Speaker 1: earning support, I think you're now above fifty trillion dollars
Speaker 1: in assets under custody, assuming that continues to grow. Where
Speaker 1: is that growth coming from, Robin, or at least where
Speaker 1: is the growth that you're targeting.
Speaker 3: Well, the growth in our company ultimately comes from our
Speaker 3: clients and readying our platforms to be able to serve them. Well,
Speaker 3: you mentioned we are the world's largest custodian. We're also
Speaker 3: the world's largest collateral manager and largest issuer services firm.
Speaker 3: That helps to service all of that debt that we
Speaker 3: were just talking about. With the world's largest securities lender,
Speaker 3: we have two trillion dollars worth of asset management firm.
Speaker 3: So all of those platforms and being able to help
Speaker 3: more of those platforms helped more of our clients. That
Speaker 3: for us is the growth path. That's what we've been
Speaker 3: executing this year, and that so far has been able
Speaker 3: to power our growth. But we also think it'll power
Speaker 3: our future.
Speaker 2: How much, Robin, are you looking at past ale acquisitions.
Speaker 3: Well, you've got acquisitions always have to be on the
Speaker 3: radar screen. We actually announced an acquisition about two months
Speaker 3: ago to buy Archer, which is a specific provider of
Speaker 3: managed accounts, which is one of the fastest growing areas
Speaker 3: of the asset management business. We felt that our platforms
Speaker 3: could benefit from that team their technology to be able
Speaker 3: to speed our growth. We're very excited about that. We
Speaker 3: expected to close this quarter and that's an important part
Speaker 3: of the story. And so we're scanning the horizon. That's
Speaker 3: a good example of it, looking for things that will
Speaker 3: speed us on our growth journey and will help us
Speaker 3: to serve our clients even better in areas of the
Speaker 3: market that are growing and may be where the puck's going.
Speaker 2: Robin Vince, thank you so much for being with us.
Speaker 2: Robin Vince, the CEO of V and yat Melon