Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / INSITE 2023 Day 2 (Podcast)
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweeney alongside
- 0:04Speaker 1: my co host Matt Miller.
- 0:05Speaker 2: Every business day we bring you interviews from CEOs, market pros,
- 0:09Speaker 2: and Bloomberg experts, along with essential market moving news.
- 0:14Speaker 1: I'm the Bloomberg Markets podcast called Apple Podcasts or wherever
- 0:17Speaker 1: you listen to podcasts, and at Bloomberg dot com Slash podcast.
- 0:21Speaker 3: Madison Mills and Paul Sweeney here.
- 0:22Speaker 1: Madison is at the Bloomberg HQ the sixth floor link
- 0:25Speaker 1: for the Bloomberg invest Conference, and I am down here
- 0:28Speaker 1: or in Orlando the World Center Marriott at the BNY
- 0:31Speaker 1: melon Pershing Insight Conference. Two thousand members of the financial
- 0:34Speaker 1: advice community. They get together every year, learning, inspiration and networking.
- 0:38Speaker 1: And they are here and I can tell you again
- 0:39Speaker 1: last night they were networking their hearts out.
- 0:41Speaker 3: Last night.
- 0:42Speaker 1: People were going nuts having a good time. It's great
- 0:44Speaker 1: to see. Joining us right now is Ben Harrison. He's
- 0:46Speaker 1: had Wealth Solutions at BNY Mellon joining us here. Ben,
- 0:49Speaker 1: Thanks so much for taking the time here. What I've noticed,
- 0:52Speaker 1: I've been in the financial services business for over thirty years,
- 0:55Speaker 1: and I've noticed just a continuous wave of successful wealth
- 0:59Speaker 1: managers leaving some of the wirehouses going independent.
- 1:02Speaker 3: Where are we in that trend these days?
- 1:06Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks for having me, Paul, and I would say
- 1:08Speaker 4: that we're still, believe it or not, in early days
- 1:12Speaker 4: of that trend. I mean we've been experiencing it really
- 1:15Speaker 4: the last fifteen years at BNYL and Pershing. And what
- 1:20Speaker 4: is driving that I think is obviously a bull market
- 1:24Speaker 4: for financial advice, but also the end investor really has
- 1:30Speaker 4: aligned towards the fiduciary independent nature of advice, and there's
- 1:36Speaker 4: just a ecosystem of providers these days that help make
- 1:40Speaker 4: it a lot easier.
- 1:41Speaker 5: When did this switch start?
- 1:44Speaker 6: And where are we at? Like, whatch inning are we
- 1:47Speaker 6: at in terms of seeing folks moving independent?
- 1:51Speaker 1: So Ben's not really catching you, so ye a little
- 1:53Speaker 1: technical Isshia. Ben's not really hearing Madison from there. She
- 1:56Speaker 1: was just asking just kind of when did this kind
- 1:57Speaker 1: of start and why would a financial advisor want to
- 2:01Speaker 1: go out on his or her own.
- 2:03Speaker 3: Sure.
- 2:03Speaker 4: So, one of the things that has absolutely powered the
- 2:07Speaker 4: movement towards independence is obviously the democratization of tools and
- 2:12Speaker 4: technology that really makes the ability to operate an independent
- 2:17Speaker 4: practice so much more proficient today. For registered investment advisors
- 2:22Speaker 4: than it ever was. But I still think that you
- 2:24Speaker 4: have to start with the investor, and the investor is
- 2:27Speaker 4: looking for objective, independent advice, and that has really driven
- 2:32Speaker 4: the community towards an opportunity for investors to really seek
- 2:37Speaker 4: an advisor that is aligned with them, that sits on
- 2:39Speaker 4: the same side of the table as them, and has
- 2:41Speaker 4: access to a broad set of open architecture solutions to
- 2:45Speaker 4: really provide holistic advice in planning across a spectrum of
- 2:50Speaker 4: services and move away from being a sales professional to
- 2:54Speaker 4: one that's on the buy side and really accessing tools
- 2:58Speaker 4: and solutions on behalf of their clients. One of the
- 3:00Speaker 4: trends I've noticed just here at this conference this year
- 3:03Speaker 4: is technology, and boy, if you're a register investment advisor
- 3:07Speaker 4: at or service provider to them like a BNY melon,
- 3:11Speaker 4: you've got to be on the cutting edge of technology.
- 3:14Speaker 4: What are some of the investments that you guys are making,
- 3:15Speaker 4: some of the tools that you're bringing to the marketplace. Well,
- 3:18Speaker 4: you're spot on, Paul, and we're in this exhibit hall
- 3:20Speaker 4: and we're looking around where all these fintech solutions that
- 3:23Speaker 4: are available and for advisors to be able to utilize
- 3:27Speaker 4: and implement portfolios and planning and advice for clients. The
- 3:33Speaker 4: challenge is there's almost so much of it these days
- 3:37Speaker 4: that it needs to be streamlined, and that's one of
- 3:39Speaker 4: the things that we are doing at BNY Melon Pershing.
- 3:41Speaker 4: We launched our Wove platform yesterday, which was really an
- 3:45Speaker 4: advice platform that helps to bring all of those applications
- 3:49Speaker 4: together in one common data layer so that we can
- 3:52Speaker 4: stitch together the different applications to really make an elegant
- 3:55Speaker 4: experience and really focus on the productivity of the because
- 4:00Speaker 4: the advisor spends so much time spending their day in
- 4:05Speaker 4: the in the tools that they're not spending as much
- 4:08Speaker 4: time as they potentially could with clients. And that's the
- 4:10Speaker 4: problem that we're off trying Solveware.
- 4:12Speaker 1: What do you hear most from some of the folks
- 4:15Speaker 1: you bump into here on the floor. What's a big
- 4:17Speaker 1: one of the big issues that you're dealing with this week?
- 4:19Speaker 4: Look this week, I think that it's a common, you know,
- 4:23Speaker 4: set of challenges that the industry is facing. Advisors really
- 4:27Speaker 4: want to focus on growth, uh in where they can
- 4:30Speaker 4: be you know, really gaining that next client. Uh They're
- 4:34Speaker 4: really thinking about scale and experience scale for their own
- 4:38Speaker 4: business experience, for their end investors, talent, you know, really
- 4:43Speaker 4: looking for next generation talent bringing them into their practice.
- 4:46Speaker 4: We've got over one hundred students here at the event
- 4:48Speaker 4: this year and that's one of the ways that that
- 4:50Speaker 4: we help do that. And then there's no shortage of
- 4:54Speaker 4: you know, challenges in the marketplace in terms of anything
- 4:57Speaker 4: that could go bump in the night and they've got
- 4:58Speaker 4: to navigate that.
- 5:01Speaker 5: Can you talk a little bit.
- 5:02Speaker 6: Sorry, this is Madison from New York coming back in.
- 5:04Speaker 6: I hope you can hear me. I was wondering, amazing, Great,
- 5:07Speaker 6: we're connected. This is great.
- 5:09Speaker 5: Can you talk to me a little bit about.
- 5:12Speaker 6: Some of the the clients that you're working with in
- 5:15Speaker 6: terms of the demo for wove?
- 5:17Speaker 5: Is this for any advisor? Is it a specific advisor?
- 5:21Speaker 4: Yeah, So the optimal client profile for a for our
- 5:25Speaker 4: solution is really a growth minded registered investment advisor, advisor
- 5:31Speaker 4: of an independent broker dealer that has clients with complexity
- 5:35Speaker 4: that need a holistic advice deliverable. So anything from planning
- 5:41Speaker 4: on the front end of the equation towards implementing models
- 5:45Speaker 4: and separate accounts and advice solutions towards you know, all
- 5:51Speaker 4: the way on the back end around what that feels
- 5:54Speaker 4: like from a wealth reporting standpoint and how all of
- 5:57Speaker 4: the solutions get displayed for an end investor. So it
- 6:03Speaker 4: actually plays really well to where Paul started, which was
- 6:08Speaker 4: a advisor that's looking to come out and start their
- 6:11Speaker 4: own entrepreneurial business to have an end to end solution
- 6:15Speaker 4: that they can really consume a technology solution from bny
- 6:18Speaker 4: Mel and Pershing. That's an optimal type of client for us.
- 6:23Speaker 6: Well, and stepping back a little bit, the wealth management space,
- 6:26Speaker 6: as you know very well, is huge. Every bank is
- 6:29Speaker 6: beefing up that side of the business and there's a
- 6:32Speaker 6: lot of competition. Is this a move from you all
- 6:37Speaker 6: to set yourselves apart and what do you think is
- 6:41Speaker 6: the single biggest thing that you're able to point.
- 6:44Speaker 5: To to set yourselves apart for your offerings?
- 6:47Speaker 3: Sure?
- 6:48Speaker 4: Well, it is a differentiator strategy and it's something that
- 6:50Speaker 4: the industry really hasn't had, which is a vertically integrated
- 6:54Speaker 4: advisory platform and a custodian that Bnymel and Purshing provides.
- 6:59Speaker 4: So that's a unique differentiator for us and it really
- 7:02Speaker 4: allows for efficiency, productivity, and best of breed solutions not
- 7:07Speaker 4: only proprietary solutions from bny Melon, but also open architecture
- 7:14Speaker 4: access to the best investment managers and tools and technology
- 7:18Speaker 4: available in the marketplace. So it's kind of a special
- 7:22Speaker 4: intersection of being open as well as leveraging the largest
- 7:28Speaker 4: global custodian anywhere in the world, as well as including
- 7:33Speaker 4: this new fintech type of feel that we have built
- 7:36Speaker 4: with the advisory platform.
- 7:38Speaker 1: Do you find that some of the younger advisors, new advisors,
- 7:41Speaker 1: they lean in more to the technical side of it, because,
- 7:44Speaker 1: I mean you think about some of the traditional financial advisors,
- 7:47Speaker 1: whether they're considered themselves stockbrokers from back in the day,
- 7:51Speaker 1: to asset gatherers. I mean, how's the fintech kind of
- 7:54Speaker 1: get I guess really integrated into that business.
- 7:57Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think.
- 7:58Speaker 4: That obviously the next generation is leaning into it, but
- 8:02Speaker 4: I would I wouldn't necessarily confine it there. I would
- 8:06Speaker 4: say that if you're not growing and evolving and moving
- 8:09Speaker 4: into this digital space, then it's gonna you're gonna be
- 8:13Speaker 4: left behind. So we find broad adoption from all walks
- 8:18Speaker 4: of wealth management leaning into digital and the ability to
- 8:23Speaker 4: really leverage these tools.
- 8:25Speaker 6: All right, Well, since you brought up innovation. I am
- 8:28Speaker 6: forced to ask my favorite question, which is the AI
- 8:31Speaker 6: elephant in the room. Have you all started discussing AI
- 8:35Speaker 6: use cases for this technology?
- 8:37Speaker 3: Absolutely?
- 8:38Speaker 4: I mean AI is going to absolutely transform our industry
- 8:42Speaker 4: in the long term. We're thinking about many use cases.
- 8:47Speaker 4: Even if you think about the use case of our
- 8:49Speaker 4: own professional staff and how we can build knowledge management
- 8:53Speaker 4: and you know, really serve our clients more effectively and
- 8:58Speaker 4: then expose the those tools to our to our advisors
- 9:04Speaker 4: and to the wealth management firms that work with us.
- 9:07Speaker 7: It's just going to completely.
- 9:09Speaker 4: Transform the way in which we serve the business, the
- 9:13Speaker 4: way in which we can scale and be more productive.
- 9:15Speaker 4: And that's just scratching the surface on you know, kind
- 9:18Speaker 4: of the low hanging fruit. Once you start to deploy
- 9:21Speaker 4: that more, you know, intentionally into the tools, it really
- 9:27Speaker 4: gets into into industring and you know, again very very
- 9:32Speaker 4: very early days.
- 9:33Speaker 7: Yep.
- 9:33Speaker 1: Absolutely, all right, Ben, thanks so much for joining us.
- 9:35Speaker 1: Really appreciate it. Ben Harrison, he's held of Wealth Solutions
- 9:38Speaker 1: at B and Y melon joining us here to talk
- 9:41Speaker 1: about some of the strategies that they're employing here with
- 9:43Speaker 1: the financial services business in Madison.
- 9:45Speaker 3: It sounds like he got a good buzz up in
- 9:47Speaker 3: New York on the sixth floor.
- 9:49Speaker 5: There is a great buzz.
- 9:50Speaker 6: Tom Keane is definitely holding court up here with folks
- 9:53Speaker 6: in the office for Bloomberg invest Day. But it sounds
- 9:58Speaker 6: like you guys ever having a a lot of activity
- 10:00Speaker 6: down there in Orlando too.
- 10:02Speaker 7: Yeah.
- 10:02Speaker 1: Absolutely, And again I was talking to some of the
- 10:04Speaker 1: event organizers down here at this Maria and they're like,
- 10:07Speaker 1: so it is full blown pre pandemic in terms of
- 10:10Speaker 1: their overall business, in terms of the conference business, the
- 10:14Speaker 1: hotel business, as well as this conference.
- 10:15Speaker 3: So that is good to see.
- 10:17Speaker 8: You're listening to the team. Ken's are live program Bloomberg
- 10:22Speaker 8: Markets weekdays at ten am Eastern on Bloomberg dot Com,
- 10:26Speaker 8: the iHeartRadio app, and the Bloomberg Business app, or listen
- 10:29Speaker 8: on demand wherever you get your podcasts.
- 10:33Speaker 1: Let's go right to our next guest here in Orlando.
- 10:35Speaker 1: Robin Vince joins us. He's the CEO of BNY Mellon.
- 10:38Speaker 1: He's responsible for this conference here and really has been
- 10:42Speaker 1: a fantastic conference and we're getting a lot of energy
- 10:44Speaker 1: down here. Robin, thanks so much for joining us here.
- 10:47Speaker 1: I mean, I'm looking at it being one I'm old
- 10:49Speaker 1: enough to remember B and Y standalone, Melon standalone, Pershing standalone.
- 10:52Speaker 1: Now you guys are together. That sounds big to me.
- 10:55Speaker 1: Then they read this silly, silly stat that just blew
- 10:57Speaker 1: me away. You guys touched like twenty percent of the
- 11:01Speaker 1: investamble assets around the world.
- 11:03Speaker 3: It's just amazing.
- 11:04Speaker 1: Force forty six point six trillion assets under custody. That
- 11:09Speaker 1: amounts to nearly half the world's GDP at the end
- 11:12Speaker 1: of twenty twenty two. You guys see everything. What are
- 11:16Speaker 1: you seeing out there in terms of the macro economy
- 11:19Speaker 1: and kind of where this thing is going?
- 11:20Speaker 9: Well, Paul, first of all, it's great to be with you,
- 11:22Speaker 9: and it's great to have you here and the team
- 11:25Speaker 9: here at our Insight conference because this really is our
- 11:28Speaker 9: premiere conference for our investor clients. And we're very excited
- 11:33Speaker 9: because at this conference we've launched some important new products. Look,
- 11:37Speaker 9: you talk about our breadth, and that really is the
- 11:39Speaker 9: hallmark of BNY Melon. You reeled off some of the stats.
- 11:42Speaker 9: I could reel off a ton more. We are relevant
- 11:45Speaker 9: to our clients. We're all around the world where global
- 11:47Speaker 9: were deeply penetrated. We power capital markets, both domestically and
- 11:52Speaker 9: around the world, and what we see and hear from
- 11:54Speaker 9: our clients is there really is some underlying optimism in
- 11:58Speaker 9: terms of the medium long term. I hear that internationally
- 12:00Speaker 9: as well when I talk to international CEOs, particularly about
- 12:04Speaker 9: the US going forward.
- 12:05Speaker 1: So but by the way, my favorite fun fact about
- 12:09Speaker 1: the Bank of New York has the best address on
- 12:12Speaker 1: Global War Street, which is number one War Street. It's
- 12:15Speaker 1: such a great, great old institution. Two hundred and thirty
- 12:18Speaker 1: nine years.
- 12:18Speaker 9: As your anniversary on yeah Friday, it's our birthday on Friday,
- 12:22Speaker 9: as we look forward to our two hundred and fortieth
- 12:24Speaker 9: year founded by Alexander Hamilton, America's all this bank first
- 12:28Speaker 9: ever company to be listened on the New York Stock Exchange.
- 12:30Speaker 9: It really is a super exciting history. But we're also
- 12:33Speaker 9: very much looking to the forward because one of the
- 12:36Speaker 9: things that we've seen across our franchise is we have
- 12:39Speaker 9: this incredible client base.
- 12:41Speaker 7: We have all of these incredible assets.
- 12:43Speaker 9: You reeled off a few of the stats, but two
- 12:45Speaker 9: and a half trillion dollars a day, we have two payments,
- 12:48Speaker 9: we have two point three trillion dollars of invested assets
- 12:50Speaker 9: on our pershing platform. We're a one point nine trillion
- 12:53Speaker 9: dollar asset manager. We have all of these hidden facets
- 12:56Speaker 9: to ourselves that we haven't fully leveraged as a breadth
- 12:59Speaker 9: of a company, and we are now unlocking that for
- 13:02Speaker 9: our clients. And right here as we sit here today
- 13:05Speaker 9: in Orlando at our Insight conference, we are launching new
- 13:10Speaker 9: product capabilities because that's the innovation for the future that'll
- 13:13Speaker 9: power us for the next two hundred and thirty nine years.
- 13:15Speaker 1: Talk to us about some of these new products and services.
- 13:17Speaker 1: We've had a lot of your folks and Bny Melon
- 13:19Speaker 1: Pershing on here talking about a lot of different things.
- 13:21Speaker 1: What from your perspective some of the interesting new products
- 13:24Speaker 1: and services you guys are launching.
- 13:25Speaker 9: Well, as a whole company, we're doing a whole bunch
- 13:27Speaker 9: of different things. We've recently launched an outsource trading capability.
- 13:31Speaker 9: We are innovating in real time payments. That's going to
- 13:34Speaker 9: be part of the new payment ecosystem of the United States.
- 13:37Speaker 9: But right here in Pershing, what we're most excited about
- 13:40Speaker 9: is our first product launch in our new business, Pershing X.
- 13:43Speaker 9: Pershing X is a business where we hired the first
- 13:45Speaker 9: person employee number one twenty months ago and from that
- 13:50Speaker 9: starting point. We had hands on keyboards in April of
- 13:53Speaker 9: last year, and now we are in market with wove,
- 13:57Speaker 9: which we've launched here at the conference. That's an exciting
- 13:59Speaker 9: new capability for advisors, making wealth advisors lives easier by
- 14:04Speaker 9: connecting the various dots of their ecosystem.
- 14:06Speaker 7: Super exciting product.
- 14:08Speaker 1: It seems like when you talk to the financial advisors
- 14:10Speaker 1: that you have here or talk to some of the
- 14:12Speaker 1: people at at BNY Melon Purshing, it's kind of all
- 14:15Speaker 1: about technology. If you're not on the front end of
- 14:17Speaker 1: that technology curve, whether you're a provider like BNY Melon
- 14:20Speaker 1: Purging or a registered investment advisor out there, you're really
- 14:23Speaker 1: putting yourself kind of behind the apall.
- 14:26Speaker 3: A little bit.
- 14:26Speaker 9: The ability to spend on technology is clearly a competitive
- 14:29Speaker 9: differentiated these days. We spend about three and a half
- 14:32Speaker 9: billion dollars on tech every year as a company, and
- 14:35Speaker 9: one of the things that we give our clients is
- 14:37Speaker 9: that the benefit of that scale. And so if you're
- 14:40Speaker 9: a wealth advisor client, here is just one example of
- 14:43Speaker 9: that client base. We have AI running on the platform
- 14:46Speaker 9: giving our wealth advisors next best advice for our clients
- 14:50Speaker 9: so that they can be smart with their clients. They
- 14:52Speaker 9: can give them good advice. We predict fails in different
- 14:55Speaker 9: parts of the market. We have other innovations, but and
- 14:58Speaker 9: we spend a lot of money on the resid brilliancy
- 15:00Speaker 9: of our tech infrastructure as well. These days, you've got
- 15:02Speaker 9: to be able to be resilient, and so the scale
- 15:05Speaker 9: of being a jesib as we are a globally systemic bank,
- 15:09Speaker 9: and the scale of breadth.
- 15:10Speaker 7: Of our products really allows us to do that.
- 15:12Speaker 9: And it allows us to wrap ourselves around our clients
- 15:15Speaker 9: and help them so they don't have to go spend
- 15:16Speaker 9: all that money themselves.
- 15:18Speaker 1: Some investors in the banks are a little concerned about
- 15:20Speaker 1: what maybe a creeping regulatory headwind for the banks. How
- 15:23Speaker 1: do you think about it for your business, whether it's
- 15:25Speaker 1: more capital needed to be put up or just you know,
- 15:27Speaker 1: tighter regulations. We had some of the regional banks have
- 15:29Speaker 1: some trouble several weeks ago, and that kind of I
- 15:32Speaker 1: guess just renewed some interesting concern among maybe some regulators.
- 15:36Speaker 7: Well, I think we've got to do to start with
- 15:38Speaker 7: on this.
- 15:38Speaker 9: You've got to look back fifteen years we had a
- 15:40Speaker 9: very significant event with a global financial crisis, and I
- 15:43Speaker 9: think regulators and policymakers did a really good job investing
- 15:47Speaker 9: in the resilience of the financial markets, and particularly in
- 15:51Speaker 9: the JESIBS, and so being one of the eight gesibs
- 15:54Speaker 9: in the US, you know, we are subject to those
- 15:56Speaker 9: higher capital standards, those high liquidity standards, and you've seen
- 15:59Speaker 9: the benefit fit of all of that resiliency play out
- 16:01Speaker 9: over the course of the next few of the past
- 16:03Speaker 9: few months, and so you know, I think what we'll
- 16:06Speaker 9: likely see is is reaction to what's happened, and policymakers
- 16:11Speaker 9: and regulators will be thoughtful about where in the system
- 16:13Speaker 9: maybe those same protections didn't exist, and I imagine there'll
- 16:17Speaker 9: be new policies, but sort of reacting to that. But
- 16:20Speaker 9: for us as we sit here today, you know, we
- 16:22Speaker 9: viewed resilience as a commercial asset. I talked about it
- 16:25Speaker 9: in the context of technology being able to invest in scale,
- 16:28Speaker 9: but it's true for the balance sheet as well, you know,
- 16:30Speaker 9: highly liquid, highly rated, conservative on these things.
- 16:33Speaker 7: It makes a difference.
- 16:35Speaker 1: One of the things we've heard as a just a
- 16:37Speaker 1: theme here over the last couple of days here in
- 16:38Speaker 1: Orlando is diversity. Diversity and the financial services industry broadly
- 16:42Speaker 1: define whether it's at the advisory level or with a
- 16:44Speaker 1: corporate level. You guys actually did a bond that kind
- 16:47Speaker 1: of brought that home a bond issue and talk to
- 16:49Speaker 1: us about that.
- 16:50Speaker 9: Yeah, it's a super super thing that we that we
- 16:53Speaker 9: did with our clients, and it was really our clients
- 16:55Speaker 9: who did it and actually had its origins at our
- 16:57Speaker 9: Pershing conference last year when we when we have a
- 17:01Speaker 9: group of our Pershing clients who are minority owned, women owned,
- 17:06Speaker 9: and veteran owned institutions who said to us that they
- 17:09Speaker 9: could lead one of our bonds. And it wasn't just
- 17:12Speaker 9: participating as a co manager, it was left lead. It
- 17:15Speaker 9: was lead managers and they solely led this deal and
- 17:19Speaker 9: just did a terrific job. And what we've done in
- 17:21Speaker 9: that together is they have become credentialized even more that
- 17:25Speaker 9: they can lead a transaction and now when they go
- 17:28Speaker 9: out to their other corporate clients, the credentialized with that
- 17:31Speaker 9: and it was our ability to help them do that.
- 17:33Speaker 7: That's how we lift everybody up. That's important.
- 17:35Speaker 3: Good stuff.
- 17:36Speaker 1: Robin, thanks so much for taking the time. I know
- 17:37Speaker 1: you're busy here at this big conference. Robert Vince, he's
- 17:40Speaker 1: the CEO of b n y Mellon joining us to
- 17:43Speaker 1: talk about all things Melon. Lots of technology changes, lots
- 17:46Speaker 1: of technology investments. BNY Melling Purging Insight Conference twenty three.
- 17:50Speaker 1: Twenty five hundred financial advisors gathered here to kind of
- 17:53Speaker 1: get the latest on the new trends in the business,
- 17:57Speaker 1: maybe learn a thing or two from colleague in from
- 18:00Speaker 1: the speakers here, and kind of stay make sure they
- 18:03Speaker 1: have the best service for their clients.
- 18:05Speaker 8: You're listening to the tape. Catch our live program Bloomberg
- 18:08Speaker 8: Markets weekdays at ten am Eastern on Bloomberg Radio, the
- 18:11Speaker 8: tune in app, Bloomberg dot Com, and the Bloomberg Business App.
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- 18:23Speaker 3: Madison Mills and York.
- 18:24Speaker 1: Paul Sweeney in Orlando to BNY Mellon Purshing Insight Conference.
- 18:27Speaker 1: We just heard from Robin Vince, the CEO of BNY Mellon.
- 18:30Speaker 1: He did a pretty good job. We'll have him back,
- 18:32Speaker 1: I think. But now we get to the people who
- 18:34Speaker 1: actually get stuff done. Jim Crowley, Chief executive Officer and
- 18:37Speaker 1: Chair of the Executive Committee for Pershing and Emmy Schlosser,
- 18:40Speaker 1: COO for Pershing join us here at the down in Orlando.
- 18:45Speaker 1: Thanks folks for stopping by here. Hey, Jim, I remember
- 18:49Speaker 1: when Pershing was a standalone company. I remember when deal
- 18:51Speaker 1: J bought it, and then I was a credit Swiss
- 18:53Speaker 1: first Boston when we bought that. That lasted about fifteen minutes.
- 18:57Speaker 1: But I'm glad you guys are all now together with
- 18:59Speaker 1: Bny and Mel. Good stuff, Jim, talk to me about
- 19:01Speaker 1: this conference here, A lot of new project product launches
- 19:04Speaker 1: for you guys, you know, servicing your financial services clients.
- 19:08Speaker 1: Talk to us about WHOA that's a name I've heard
- 19:10Speaker 1: a lot about just about that.
- 19:12Speaker 3: What does it mean for you? What does it mean
- 19:13Speaker 3: for your clients?
- 19:15Speaker 10: Yeah, this is the moment for WOVE.
- 19:16Speaker 11: It has been a couple of years in the making,
- 19:19Speaker 11: and we're so excited to be launching this new advisory
- 19:24Speaker 11: tool and platform too. You know, as Ainsley has spoken about,
- 19:28Speaker 11: to create the interoperability of all the disconnected technology that's
- 19:33Speaker 11: out there and having advisors productivity be their.
- 19:37Speaker 10: KPI is such a cool thing for us.
- 19:39Speaker 11: And to have such a great welcome from everyone here
- 19:43Speaker 11: at Insight.
- 19:44Speaker 1: So is Wolf here kind of Emily, just is it
- 19:46Speaker 1: a way for financial advisors? There's so many things I
- 19:49Speaker 1: have to think about, and you know, different asset classes,
- 19:51Speaker 1: a different reporting requirements.
- 19:53Speaker 3: So what does wolve kind of do for them?
- 19:54Speaker 12: Yeah, it's essentially the technology tool in which they can live.
- 20:00Speaker 12: Advisors spend seventy percent of their time today doing administrative
- 20:04Speaker 12: tasks across disjointed tools, and Wove is out to solve
- 20:09Speaker 12: that problem. It is a single place where they'll have
- 20:12Speaker 12: applications for everything that they need to do, from CRM
- 20:16Speaker 12: to financial planning, portfolio construction and management, data insights, reporting,
- 20:22Speaker 12: billing all comes together through WOVE. All of those applications
- 20:26Speaker 12: I just mentioned are fully interoperable, interconnected. Data is shared
- 20:31Speaker 12: across all of them. You will only enter data once
- 20:33Speaker 12: and it feeds across all the applications. So it really
- 20:37Speaker 12: is out to help advisors be more productive. Its mission
- 20:41Speaker 12: is to help advisors help more people.
- 20:43Speaker 1: So, Jim, I've been just amazed really over last I
- 20:46Speaker 1: don't know, twenty twenty five years to see this constant
- 20:48Speaker 1: flow of financial advisors leave some of the bigger shops,
- 20:53Speaker 1: the wirehouses for example, go out on their own here
- 20:55Speaker 1: and at Pershing that's you serve those people.
- 20:58Speaker 3: So what are you seeing in a current trends today?
- 21:00Speaker 1: I see twenty five hundred these folks roaming around the
- 21:02Speaker 1: hall here today.
- 21:04Speaker 3: What are you seeing in terms of those trends?
- 21:05Speaker 11: Well, the breakaway trend is still on the upswing. We believe,
- 21:09Speaker 11: we still believe that there's great opportunity for people who
- 21:12Speaker 11: want to own and operate their own business and have
- 21:14Speaker 11: more freedom of choice. In fact, it's one of the
- 21:16Speaker 11: principles of how we operate our platform, Paul, which is
- 21:20Speaker 11: we provide advisors with a turnkey platform so they can
- 21:24Speaker 11: break away land here safely, be on a technology stack
- 21:28Speaker 11: that Emily just well described with Wove, and have freedom
- 21:32Speaker 11: of choice around product selection that they as fiduciaries and
- 21:37Speaker 11: as advisors need in order to serve their clients.
- 21:43Speaker 6: And am I on sorry guys, okay, perfect, perfect, Sorry
- 21:47Speaker 6: about that, Emily. I want to go back to you
- 21:50Speaker 6: because you were talking about the time savings that this
- 21:52Speaker 6: is allowing for some of your clients.
- 21:54Speaker 5: Do you have any examples of something.
- 21:57Speaker 6: That you know one of your advisors has been able
- 22:00Speaker 6: to do more effectively because of the time saving.
- 22:04Speaker 12: Yeah, Look, you can go within WOVE right from a
- 22:08Speaker 12: financial plan to directly creating the portfolio that's going to
- 22:13Speaker 12: allow you to reach the goals that you've set with
- 22:16Speaker 12: your client. That then, by the way, automatically takes into
- 22:20Speaker 12: account tax optimization and gives you access to all of
- 22:25Speaker 12: the financial solutions that you want to feed into that portfolio.
- 22:28Speaker 12: I mean, it follows right on the path without having
- 22:32Speaker 12: to swivel between different tools and technology. It's a much
- 22:36Speaker 12: more seamless experience, and it encourages advisors to use all
- 22:40Speaker 12: aspects so that they're not just focused on portfolio construction.
- 22:45Speaker 12: That they are taking the time to do that planning
- 22:46Speaker 12: with their clients, which is so valuable to the end investor.
- 22:49Speaker 11: And TEX optimization is a great example when an advisor
- 22:52Speaker 11: wants to transition a client to a new portfolio, what
- 22:56Speaker 11: is that client's tolerance level from a tax perspective, and
- 23:00Speaker 11: Wolf gives them the tools in order to model that
- 23:03Speaker 11: very efficiently.
- 23:06Speaker 1: So looking you know here Pershing X, we've heard a
- 23:10Speaker 1: lot about that, and you guys have a strategy I
- 23:12Speaker 1: guess for this year simply scale and serve.
- 23:15Speaker 3: What does that mean, Emily?
- 23:16Speaker 12: Yeah, So at Pershing our mission is to simplify, scale
- 23:19Speaker 12: and serve to build on that a little bit. We
- 23:22Speaker 12: are working to simplify the complex. A large part of
- 23:26Speaker 12: how we're doing that is through technology. I think Wolve
- 23:28Speaker 12: is a really good example of that. We've just talked
- 23:30Speaker 12: about the productivity that it drives because it is a simplified,
- 23:35Speaker 12: single ecosystem for advisors to live in. We're looking to
- 23:40Speaker 12: scale to grow. We have the most kind of stable,
- 23:44Speaker 12: resilient platform. Last year, on a single day, we processed
- 23:48Speaker 12: four point eight million trades, and our commitment to our
- 23:52Speaker 12: clients is that they will never outgrow our platform. And
- 23:56Speaker 12: then finally, we're looking to serve to delight. We think
- 23:59Speaker 12: it's a critical differentiator for us to really be at
- 24:03Speaker 12: the cutting edge of service. Quite honestly, I think it's
- 24:06Speaker 12: an area where our whole industry lags, and I think
- 24:10Speaker 12: it's it's really what our clients ultimately deserve a need.
- 24:14Speaker 11: And Paul, if you just looked around the expo here,
- 24:16Speaker 11: you can see all the exhibitors and see the complexity
- 24:20Speaker 11: in the system. And so when Emily speaks about simplifying
- 24:23Speaker 11: the complex, that's exactly what.
- 24:25Speaker 10: She's speaking about.
- 24:26Speaker 11: And if you really pull back and want and take
- 24:28Speaker 11: a look at what we do on an annual basis.
- 24:31Speaker 11: Our capex in twenty twenty three is reinvesting seventy five
- 24:35Speaker 11: percent of our capex into simplifying the complex, So we
- 24:40Speaker 11: believe it really is one of the key pillar source strategy.
- 24:43Speaker 6: Well, on that note, Jim, sticking with you here, what
- 24:46Speaker 6: are you hearing on the ground in Orlando that is
- 24:49Speaker 6: changing your thinking is at all about Wove and what
- 24:52Speaker 6: you want to do next?
- 24:54Speaker 10: Well, it's what we're hearing on the ground is.
- 24:57Speaker 11: And that's a great comment because we really want to
- 24:59Speaker 11: listen to what our clients are saying.
- 25:00Speaker 10: They're giving us feedback constantly.
- 25:03Speaker 11: On the order of operation of how we introduce new
- 25:06Speaker 11: technology into the Wove platform. And what we believe in
- 25:10Speaker 11: is we believe in this connectivity, we believe in this interoperability,
- 25:14Speaker 11: we believe in having data moved seamlessly across these different
- 25:19Speaker 11: applications with an ecosystem. And we're not going to be
- 25:23Speaker 11: fullhearted or chase the hot dot, if you will, by
- 25:26Speaker 11: adding new things unless we believe they do other things
- 25:29Speaker 11: that Emily just spoke about simplifying the complex and scaling
- 25:34Speaker 11: and enhancing the service model.
- 25:36Speaker 1: And Emily, one of the terms that every single company
- 25:40Speaker 1: in the S and P five hundred mentioned on their
- 25:42Speaker 1: conference call last quarter was AI. Whether you an ice
- 25:45Speaker 1: cream company or a technology company, you have to weave
- 25:47Speaker 1: AI into your conversation if no other reason, to get
- 25:50Speaker 1: your stock multiple up Artificial intelligence for your business. I
- 25:54Speaker 1: would think there are so many applications. I mean, it's
- 25:58Speaker 1: super early days.
- 25:59Speaker 3: I guess, how are you guys thinking about that?
- 26:01Speaker 13: Yeah, it's early.
- 26:02Speaker 12: Days for some of the newer aspects of AI around
- 26:06Speaker 12: large language models and generative AI. But AI has been
- 26:10Speaker 12: around for a while and it's very heavily embedded in
- 26:13Speaker 12: our platforms. When you use our custodial application, it is
- 26:18Speaker 12: embedded in the search. You can actually navigate our whole
- 26:21Speaker 12: platform using natural language. It is heavily embedded in pershing X,
- 26:27Speaker 12: and if you think about the possibilities of it, it's
- 26:30Speaker 12: almost mind blowing. I mean, I talked about serve as
- 26:33Speaker 12: being one of our big pillars. If you could imagine
- 26:36Speaker 12: a world in which our service model was very self
- 26:40Speaker 12: service for our clients and they were almost pulling up
- 26:42Speaker 12: something like a chat GPT and being able to kind
- 26:46Speaker 12: of find whatever answers they want from all the data
- 26:50Speaker 12: that they have on our platform. It's not that far away,
- 26:53Speaker 12: and that's pretty awesome.
- 26:55Speaker 1: Jim, we've got about a minute left here. You're the
- 26:58Speaker 1: CEO here. What's the biggest challenge for you when you
- 27:01Speaker 1: go talk to the big boss? What do you tell
- 27:02Speaker 1: him is kind of something that you're a little concerned
- 27:05Speaker 1: about going forward?
- 27:05Speaker 10: Well, it's my focus is really on two things. It's
- 27:09Speaker 10: talent and execution.
- 27:11Speaker 11: So when I talk to the big Boss, he really
- 27:14Speaker 11: is asking me how are we doing because we are
- 27:17Speaker 11: making a pretty significant investment in this particular product launch
- 27:22Speaker 11: with Wove and in our platform most specifically. So he's
- 27:27Speaker 11: focused on execution, and I'm really focused on talent as well.
- 27:32Speaker 11: I need to have a team around me that is
- 27:35Speaker 11: not only diverse, but really focused on all the things
- 27:39Speaker 11: that we need to do and very complimentary to the
- 27:41Speaker 11: skills that I have.
- 27:42Speaker 1: All right, guys, really appreciate you taking the time. Guys
- 27:45Speaker 1: throw a good conference here. Appreciate it. Jim Crowley, chief
- 27:47Speaker 1: executive Officer and Chair of the Executive Committee for Pershing
- 27:50Speaker 1: and Emily Schlosser, COO of person joining us life here
- 27:54Speaker 1: on site here, So some good stuff here. Lots of
- 27:57Speaker 1: you know, twenty five hundred financial advisors run and around here,
- 28:00Speaker 1: trying to get a little bit smarter about their business,
- 28:03Speaker 1: doing a little networking, and I contellue they do some
- 28:05Speaker 1: serious networking at night down here in Orlando, Florida. So
- 28:08Speaker 1: the good stuff there, market's not much happening.
- 28:11Speaker 3: What else is new? S and P five hundred absolutely
- 28:13Speaker 3: unched on the day.
- 28:15Speaker 8: You're listening to the team Ken's are Live program Bloomberg
- 28:19Speaker 8: Markets weekdays at ten am Eastern on Bloomberg dot Com,
- 28:22Speaker 8: the iHeartRadio app, and the Bloomberg Business App, or listen
- 28:25Speaker 8: on demand wherever you get your podcasts.
- 28:30Speaker 1: Madison Mills in New York City at the Bloomberg invest
- 28:32Speaker 1: Conference at the sixth floor of Bloomberg Global HQ.
- 28:36Speaker 3: Interviewing a lot of great people there.
- 28:37Speaker 1: I'm down here in Orlando, live from the World Center
- 28:41Speaker 1: Maria in Orlando, Florida.
- 28:42Speaker 3: BNY Melon Pershing Insight Conference.
- 28:45Speaker 1: Lots of financial advisors running around here, trying to get
- 28:47Speaker 1: a little bit smarter about the wealth management business.
- 28:50Speaker 3: One of the businesses that these.
- 28:51Speaker 1: Folks at BNY Melon Pershing are talking a lot about
- 28:54Speaker 1: at this conference is Pershing X. I need to know
- 28:57Speaker 1: a little bit more about what's going on in Pershing
- 28:59Speaker 1: X and how it's working for these wealth managers. So
- 29:01Speaker 1: I figured let's get employeed number one at Pershing X.
- 29:05Speaker 1: Ainsley Simmons, president of Pershing X Droids, is here. Ainsley,
- 29:08Speaker 1: what is Pershing X. What are you guys trying to
- 29:11Speaker 1: what need in the market you trying to fill?
- 29:13Speaker 3: Yeah?
- 29:13Speaker 14: So Pershing X is a fintech inside of the Bank
- 29:17Speaker 14: of New York Mellon that was started about a year
- 29:18Speaker 14: and a half ago. And as you said, I was
- 29:20Speaker 14: employee number one, so I know the whole journey. It
- 29:24Speaker 14: is here to build and continuously improve a new wealth
- 29:31Speaker 14: management platform, which we actually announced yesterday, okay, called Wolf
- 29:36Speaker 14: And what Wolve is here to do is to make
- 29:39Speaker 14: an advisor's day more productive by providing a way to
- 29:44Speaker 14: connect applications so they don't have to swell a chair.
- 29:48Speaker 6: And jumping in here from New York, Ainsley, talk to
- 29:51Speaker 6: me about how you are measuring success for the platform,
- 29:55Speaker 6: given that you were part of the founding of it.
- 30:00Speaker 5: What is success looking like for you?
- 30:02Speaker 14: Yeah, So we center all of our decisions around what
- 30:05Speaker 14: we put in woe of and how it works and
- 30:07Speaker 14: how it's going to scale around advisor productivity. You know,
- 30:11Speaker 14: I said yesterday from the stage, and it's absolutely true.
- 30:15Speaker 14: Our KPI, what we are going to measure our success
- 30:18Speaker 14: on is how much time we give back to advisors
- 30:21Speaker 14: so that they can help their clients or just use
- 30:24Speaker 14: that time to prospect or grow revenue or you know,
- 30:27Speaker 14: work on their practice. You know, there's so many more
- 30:29Speaker 14: productive things that they could be doing then, you know,
- 30:32Speaker 14: retyping data and you know, learning new systems. So we're
- 30:36Speaker 14: really focused on that productivity KPI. We've built the measurement
- 30:41Speaker 14: of that into the platform and as advisors adopt, we'll
- 30:45Speaker 14: be able to help share with them how they're doing
- 30:48Speaker 14: and help them with new ideas on how to be
- 30:51Speaker 14: more productive. You know, we think the promise of software
- 30:55Speaker 14: hasn't resulted in the leverage business leverage that advisors had
- 31:00Speaker 14: hoped for because of this lack of interconnectivity.
- 31:04Speaker 13: So that's that's one hundred percent what we're focused on.
- 31:07Speaker 1: Do financial advisors buy and large, do they embrace technology?
- 31:11Speaker 14: Yeah, I mean I think you know, listen, I've been
- 31:13Speaker 14: in this business for a while on the tech side,
- 31:15Speaker 14: and you know what has gone from and if we
- 31:18Speaker 14: need technology in our practice, it is now to and
- 31:21Speaker 14: absolutely we need technology in our practice, and I think
- 31:23Speaker 14: advisors very much see the value clients are demanding, you know,
- 31:27Speaker 14: really good and elegant client experiences. So they're there, They're
- 31:32Speaker 14: one hundred percent there. I think what's so frustrating for
- 31:35Speaker 14: them though, as they have to hop across seven, eight, nine, ten,
- 31:39Speaker 14: sometimes fifteen different pieces of technology. And I mean, imagine
- 31:43Speaker 14: your own life if you didn't have an operating system
- 31:46Speaker 14: on your phone and every app you went to look
- 31:49Speaker 14: at was so one hundred percent completely different. There was
- 31:52Speaker 14: no common alerts, there were no common search elements like it.
- 31:55Speaker 13: Just that's exhausting.
- 31:56Speaker 14: It takes too hard to it takes too much to learn,
- 31:59Speaker 14: you know, adoption is hard. You know, they feel like
- 32:02Speaker 14: they need a manual, and you know, that's just not
- 32:04Speaker 14: where we are in technology in our daily life, and
- 32:07Speaker 14: it's not where they should be in technology, in serving
- 32:12Speaker 14: clients and helping them create wealth in their lives.
- 32:16Speaker 6: When we talk about technology, it feels like we always
- 32:18Speaker 6: have the same conversation whenever there's a new innovation. We
- 32:21Speaker 6: worried that the internet was going to take jobs away.
- 32:23Speaker 6: Now we're doing the same thing with AI. What's your
- 32:26Speaker 6: thinking on the cost benefit analysis of AI as a
- 32:30Speaker 6: tool versus as something that's going to be a headwind.
- 32:33Speaker 14: Yeah, you know, I think obviously goes without saying we're
- 32:36Speaker 14: in very early days of what AI can do. But
- 32:39Speaker 14: you know, if there is a tool that can help
- 32:42Speaker 14: you parse through large data sets or help you, you know,
- 32:46Speaker 14: get smart about a topic in a very short period
- 32:48Speaker 14: of time, I mean I see people wanting to adopt
- 32:52Speaker 14: that kind of thing, just because nobody wants to have
- 32:55Speaker 14: to work as hard as we have to work sometimes
- 32:58Speaker 14: just to get you know, marketing for me, or get inform,
- 33:01Speaker 14: you know, get prepared for a client meeting. So I
- 33:04Speaker 14: think there's going to be lots of terrific applications in
- 33:07Speaker 14: our business.
- 33:09Speaker 13: You know, I don't think and I've maintained this.
- 33:11Speaker 14: View for many, many, many many years, and I believe
- 33:14Speaker 14: I've gone on record saying this many times. I don't
- 33:17Speaker 14: think there is a disintermediation disintermediation of advisors anytime in
- 33:23Speaker 14: our near future, because money is incredibly personal and people
- 33:27Speaker 14: have to have a really high which most advisors, almost
- 33:31Speaker 14: all advisors do, are really high eq to help people
- 33:35Speaker 14: through financial decisions, and a computer just can't do that.
- 33:38Speaker 1: Talk to us a little bit about diversity in the
- 33:40Speaker 1: wealth management business. How do you guys think about that,
- 33:42Speaker 1: because we've heard a couple of folks raise that as
- 33:45Speaker 1: a them need to do a better job in terms
- 33:47Speaker 1: of the diversity within the wealth management side of financial services.
- 33:50Speaker 14: Yeah, I mean, I think the leading firms out there
- 33:52Speaker 14: understand that, you know, their clients are diverse, and so
- 33:57Speaker 14: their firms need to be diverse. I've met, you know,
- 34:02Speaker 14: lots and lots and lots of different clients over the
- 34:04Speaker 14: next over the last few days, and you know, the
- 34:06Speaker 14: ones that I know are really leading, are leading, leading
- 34:10Speaker 14: into women as investors, leading into other communities as investors,
- 34:16Speaker 14: and they're really seeing that wealth is not being concentrated
- 34:20Speaker 14: in the ways it was in the past. And I
- 34:23Speaker 14: think those firms ultimately will win because that, you know,
- 34:27Speaker 14: I hate to say it, you got to go where
- 34:29Speaker 14: the money is, and the money is shifting, and you know,
- 34:33Speaker 14: the face of an investor is shifted. I mean, if
- 34:37Speaker 14: if you're an advisor and you haven't realized that most
- 34:40Speaker 14: of the billionaires that are being created in America right
- 34:42Speaker 14: now are tech founders and they probably don't look anything
- 34:46Speaker 14: like your traditional client, you're missing the boat.
- 34:49Speaker 6: In our final forty five seconds, or so with you, Ainsley,
- 34:52Speaker 6: can you talk to me about some of the challenges
- 34:56Speaker 6: that might lie ahead for that inclusion and diversity and
- 34:59Speaker 6: do you think that there's been adoption across the board.
- 35:02Speaker 6: Does everybody get it by now or are you still
- 35:05Speaker 6: seeing some challenge on that.
- 35:07Speaker 5: Yeah?
- 35:07Speaker 14: No, I mean not everybody gets anything, so you know,
- 35:10Speaker 14: I think that would be sort of hyperbolic to say that,
- 35:13Speaker 14: you know, you could expect everybody to get something.
- 35:16Speaker 13: But again, as I said, I think they're really smart.
- 35:18Speaker 14: Firms see where wealth is, they see where it's headed,
- 35:22Speaker 14: and you know, they want to prepare so that their
- 35:24Speaker 14: business continue continue to grow and develop in the future.
- 35:27Speaker 13: You know.
- 35:27Speaker 14: Robin our, CEO of the Bank of New York Mellon,
- 35:30Speaker 14: talked about some things we're doing to you know, bring
- 35:34Speaker 14: new bond issuances from you know, different communities into the marketplace.
- 35:39Speaker 14: I mean, there's so many ways in which the capital
- 35:41Speaker 14: markets can can be reflecting, frankly, the face of America,
- 35:46Speaker 14: and I think, you know, good things are happening in
- 35:48Speaker 14: a lot of places.
- 35:49Speaker 13: There's obviously more to be done.
- 35:51Speaker 3: Angeie, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it.
- 35:54Speaker 1: Angeley Simmons Pershing ex president the Fintech within the B
- 35:58Speaker 1: and Y Melon Pershing.
- 36:02Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Markets podcast. You can
- 36:06Speaker 2: subscribe and listen to interviews at Apple Podcasts or whatever
- 36:09Speaker 2: podcast platform you prefer. I'm Matt Miller. I'm on Twitter
- 36:13Speaker 2: at Matt Miller nineteen seventy three.
- 36:16Speaker 3: And I'm Fall Sweeney. I'm on Twitter at pt Sweeney.
- 36:18Speaker 1: Before the podcast, you can always catch us worldwide at
- 36:21Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio