BNY Mellon CEO: Caution on Emerging Tech Can't Spell Complacency

Regarding the world of wealth management, he echoed the comments made earlier in the conference by Jim Crowley, CEO of BNY Mellon Pershing, arguing artificial intelligence capabilities will be best deployed when they complement, not replace, the work of skilled and trusted human advisors.

“I see AI as a really exciting topic for all of us across the organization, especially in the Pershing business,” Vince said. “This kind of technology, as a wealth advisor, can really be your co-pilot and help you understand what your clients might want to do next. It can help you do deeper planning so much more quickly and easily.

“The future will bring more innovation, but right now, AI can already be a lever that helps us to do things more efficiently — to get a depth of planning insight that would normally take hours, days or weeks to accomplish.”

Investing to Empower Advisors

Stepping back from the topic of AI, Vince said BNY Mellon will continue to invest in whatever technology capabilities will benefit the firm’s clients, and he said the scale of the organization will make that investment hard to match.

“Frankly, we have the ability and the expertise to make really powerful investments in all of these areas, and we are doing just that,” Vince said. “To give you some perspective, we spend about $3.5 billion per year on our technology upkeep and development.”

Vince said the launch of the Wove platform is a just the most recent example of the firm “building to get ahead of the emerging trends and needs of our clients.”

“The goal in this kind of work is to solve the problems that are emerging — the problems that people are increasingly going to encounter,” Vince said. “That’s where a good strategy and a good ability to listen to and understand the needs of our clients comes into play, whether within Pershing or in any other part of the business.

“I often say to our people that we can’t have a crystal ball to see the future. That’s not possible, but we can have a crystal ball to see the present if we take advantage of all of the information at our fingertips. Through our scale, we can see trends coming into the marketplace, and we can innovate to stay ahead of them.”

Pictured: Robin Vince of BNY Mellon.