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They also want to get back to the data as well, and that's Jolts number coming in a little lighter than estimated. Also, looking at the two year yield over the last five days, it's had a twenty three basis point move to the downside, and there's been a lot of money coming into the bond market. Is it short covering? Is it true buying? Is it really looking for a cut from the Fed?
You know the person to ask for this, right, bloom It's not our Jersey.
Bloomberg Intelligence TuS indust rate strategist standing by first job.
Ira.
Let me know what you think about the Jolts number so coming in a little lighter but nothing terrible.
What's your reaction to it?
Yeah, I don't think that you still have eight million job openings, right, So it's not like the it's completely fallen off a cliff, but we continue to see this modest pullback in the number of job openings, and you know, I was I was just trying to go through some of the data looking at things like quits rates and and the like, because I think that's the more interesting
nuanced data that's comes with the joult report. We also have to remember it's a little bit it's a little bit dated compared to some of the more high frequency data that we get that's going to start being from May that that we start that we've already started to get with the ISM data yesterday. So this Joltz data, I think is interesting for trends looking at things like job leavers and and if job leavers are getting more higher wages when they leave, and and and the like.
So you know, I need to dig into the data a little bit more. The dourables numbers were also kind of important because the durable goods orders had slipped in the second half of last year, and now they seem to be at a reasonably steady state now. So that's not a it's not showing that the economy is really falling off a cliff by any stretch, but maybe things are slung just a little.
So I again, as Alex is pointing out, we've had a pullback, a noticeable pullback in rates here. I was looking at the ten year four point three four percent here, although the mortgage rate is still sitting stubbornly just above seven percent. Is this a technical move in the marketplace, Ira, or is this some fundamentals some folks kind of really putting some positions on one or the other.
Yeah, people are definitely short covering a little bit, as well as maybe adding a little bit of duration risk here. You mentioned, Paul the twenty ishpass point rally in the in the two year note, and I think that s endemic of the idea that you know, we had basically priced out almost every cut this year, and we're now pricing in maybe the chance of a cut again, especially
after yesterday's ism. Manufacturing numbers and the new orders numbers really slipped hard, and that has historically been a pretty decent indicator of where the economy's head it. So the market is getting in front of what it perceives, maybe as a deeper slow down than they had been expecting
prior to seeing some of that data. You look at the tenure Yale and we're still we're at the bottom end of what's been a bit of a range talking about broadly speaking, four point three percent to maybe four point five four point six percent, And now that we're kind of at the lower end of that range, I suspect that you'll start to see the momentum slip. But but four point three percent is a pretty important technical level.
We break below that, and we could wind up testing a low four percent kind of area once we do so, and it'll be interesting to see how many people have kind of stop losses there in terms of you know, once we break below that, the shorts might get really really nervous and wind up covering very dramatically, and you can often see pretty big moves on once that sorts of pickup.
Steve, Well, yeah, that's what I was going to ask, because headed into jobs Friday.
It's positioning.
Is there one side or another in terms of too many longs, too many shorts?
I don't think that there's too many at the moment. You know, the positioning data in treasuries is a little bit hard to come by because it's a matter of a matter of who actually owns it and aren't those hands, you know, sticky or not? And what you do see you look at things like the j p. Morgan Treasury Sentiment survey that they do with some of their customers, and that shows that that that investors are a little
bit long, but not very long. You look at some futures positioning and certainly people have been lightening up their shorts in with using treasury futures. So all of those things really I think lead me to believe that we're probably not over our skis one way or the other. Unlike when we were at four point seven percent on the ten year yield, when a lot of people were really short and it seemed like, you know, if you got any pullback, it was going to wind up being
pretty dramatic. So but but nonetheless, I think people are still a little bit skittish. People are still uncertain, and the the fact that people you know, aren't particularly in one risk or the other, then putting on that risk could wind up moving the market pretty dramatically. Because liquidity just isn't what it used to be in the treasury market. You could still see, you know, ten to fifteen basis point moves on things that you wouldn't expect there to
be as dramatic of a movement. Yesterday's the Ism report as a case, in point, you know, a nine basis point movement in ten year treasuries on guess a bad report, but it wasn't like insanely bad by any stretch of the imagination.
All right, Ira, next Wednesday, Fed Day, what are the smart people like you?
What are you going to be listening for?
Well, certainly you know we get Friday's payrolls report first, Paul, But yeah, next next week, it's really going to be what is what is the propensity? And has anything change from the last meeting in terms of they're being on hold consensus, So we suspect that their base case is going to be where holding rates where they are until it's clear that the economy is falling out of bed or inflation has is healthily going toward their target of
two percent. And you know that that ladder on the inflation, it doesn't seem likely that you're going to get a significant downtick and inflation over the next couple of months. So you know, quite frankly, if if they don't cut in July, I doubt that the Fed will make its first cut in September for a couple of reasons. The election certainly is part of that. In the back of their minds. They won't never admit that, but I suspect
that it is. But but if the data is not that bad from their standpoint, look, waiting six weeks, you know, cutting in November, you know that's that That's probably what we're going to be listening for, is what's there? What's their triggers?
Right?
And and you've heard some speakers talk a little bit differently than what Jay Powell said in early May, like talking about the potential for hikes if inflation were to reaccelerate. So it would be interesting to hear Jay Powell in the Prescot difference if he actually says something about that, because you refuse to do that in May. And if he comes out and says, yeah, we're a little bit more symmetric. Certainly if inflation goes up, we'll we'll have
to hike more. He was given every opportunity to May to say that and he just didn't.
All Right, last question here for us Ayra. You mentioned what are the Central Bank triggers? And I'm wondering if the spotlight it puts on the.
ECB on Thursday.
It feels like the June cut has been widely telegraphed and I'm wondering how you see those differentials really playing out.
Yeah, So if the ECB doesn't cut as as is anticipated, then that then I think you can wind up seeing some pretty dramatic market action. You probably see front end yields go up a little bit globally, not only in Europe but also here in the US. The global rates markets have been reasonably correlated, although the ECB, the europe boon market, and German yields have diverged a little bit from the US. It really comes down to I think that the big moves that you'll probably see if something
like that happens, will be in Fax. And I do think that the euro could move pretty dramatically and it may be strengthen quite a lot if the if the the ECB doesn't cut interest rates.
All right, Irack, thank you so much for We appreciate that. Ira Jersey, interest rate strategist for Bloomberg Intelligence.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live weekdays at ten am Eastern on applecar Play and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business aff You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station. Just say Alexa Play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
The other big story we're keeping our eye on is India's election. The stock market is completely plummeted here, racing about three hundred and eighty six billion dollars in market value. The tally signal that Prime Minister in Norandom Mode's ruling party was struggling to win a majority of seats, and that was very much a surprise.
And Neranda Mode is speaking right now as well.
We've been waiting for this address to the nation and he's finally speaking, joining us dance from Bloomberg senior reporter in New Delhi.
What do we know from what Random Modi is saying right now, Well.
I mean it's looking like Mody, his BJP party, which has ruled India with quite a substantial majority for the last ten years, is going to be losing its majority in the parliament and is going to have to form a government with its coalition partners. So it's really a major electoral setback for Mody, an electoral setback for the BJP, and I mean, more than anything, just quite a surprise
to everybody here today. I mean, the ruling party was going into this election very optimistic, very confident of expanding its majority in Parliament, of getting a two thirds majority with its alliance partners, and it's looking like a total reversal on all those fronts.
So, Dan, what are the people saying here? What are the voters saying here? What don't they like?
What are they pushing back on in terms of the Modi administration.
Well, one message that's emerging is that there's a real sort of simmering discontent with the economy that propelled a lot of a lot of voters at the polls during during the selection. I mean, you know, we know that India's India is really a big economic success story, I mean eight percent economic growth in the most recent fiscal year, you know, a really a growing presence on the world stage and and a rising manufacturer. But below the surface,
there's a lot of issues. There's issues with high levels of joblessness, rising inflation, widening inequality. I mean, these are all issues that have really you know, grown in in salience over the last ten years and that that Modi and the b JP have i have really struggled to address. And there these are issues that the opposition really seized upon in this campaign.
All Right, Dan, thanks a lot.
We really appreciate looking forward not to hear any more of what Dranda Movie will say in this national address.
And Stump Bloomberg, Senior reporter in New Delhi.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple car Playing and broyd Outo with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
All right, Alix, here's the stuff that just gets me every time you come here. BNY Mellon is the world's largest custodian and Pershing is now the second largest business within BNY Melon.
And I've done business.
With Purging for thirty years, but every five years they have a different owner. It teams like, but it seems like they found a home here BNY. So we are in Nashville, Tennessee the Grand Gaylord oppuland Resort in Nashville for the bn Y Melon Insight Conference. Alex Steel and Paul Sweeney we're joined right now. We're very appreciative to get some time with Jim Crowley Global ahead of b and Y Mellon's perject business. He joins us here on site Jim,
thanks so much for having us did this year. I know it's a you got two thousand financial advisors around here. They've all got their own agendas, But what's the theme you're trying to get across to the folks here?
So two thousand advisors, correct and thought leadership people. So the theme that we're trying to get across is how do you take your business to the next level? Because we believe that scale, productivity, and growth are the lifeblood
of our industry. And at bn Y Melon, who is by the way, celebrating its two hundred and fortieth year in business, we believe that there's so much value embedded in the bing Y Melon franchise that we can unlock and deliver these to financial advisors to help power their growth in the future.
And what does that growth look like in the future? Like what's new today that wouldn't have been here a year ago?
Well, I think what's new today is that people. People are more and more coming to the realization how complex this business is and becoming even more complex than the environment, whether it's macro things related to technology, regulation or just the economy and how much energy and how much investment dollars they have to invest in operating the business, So how can they outsource things to be more efficient, more productive, drive more scale, and sort of eliminate those binding constraints
to their growth.
You know, one of the great stories I think in personal wealth management is this whole transition or bequeathment, if you will, of the wealth of the baby boomer generation to the next generation. So, if I'm a financial advisor, I'm not just a stock and bond person.
I got to think.
About estates and wills and taxation and all that kind of stuff.
How do you guys help them with that?
Yeah, planning is certainly becoming more and more part of the formula, right, So investment management used to sort of be the core competency of a financial advisor, but now it's it's a different story.
Right.
You have to have a breath of large breath of services that you can offer to every one of your clients because their financial lives are becoming more and more complex. And so we put out in the marketplace a platform to offer all those things, whether it's planning, whether it's tax transition work, whether it's estate planning, and providing them with investment management tools and all the other products that they need in order to be successful with advisors.
We were talking earlier about greyscale having a boost right behind you. Yeah, that's different, is it not?
It is?
It is different, And in fact, you know, if you take a three year sort of perspective on the business, we have this thought that almost every portfolio will have some tokenized asset in their portfolio in three years.
Wow, how much of the portfolio well to be determined?
Right, whether it's that five percent or that ten percent.
That's a big difference if you're a bitcoin older.
Big difference at yeah, sixty six or wherever we're at.
Yeah, So tell us about security.
If I think about a system, a financial system, I mean a Bloomberg. We take data security and the security of our system extraordinarily seriously, and I know that folks in the financial services industry have to do as well. So I'm a wealth manager out there trying to serve my clients. How do I feel secure about maybe your platform? We're just platforms in general.
Yeah, So what comes along with being a two hundred and forty year old institution is this notion of resiliency and being a globally systematic important bank. We have a lot of help with making certain that all of our systems and all of our data are well protected and backed up. And so we take great pride in everything
we do around cyber resiliency. And we also take great pride by the way and making data available to clients because these clients, these financial advisors, need those insights, and so we're working hard on trying to create the tools that they need to not only stay resilient in their operating environment, but also to create value with the data that we have.
So, how many wealth advisors financial advisors are here? Two thousand?
Well, give or take there are two thousand attendees. There are roughly one thousand, roughly fifty percent our advisors, and then you know, roughly the next half is going to be thought leaders exhibitors that are here, and then a group of us who are in client coverage business.
Do we have too many wealth managers, too many financial advisors?
Well, that's a very interesting question, you know, because I think this. I don't think we have enough wealth.
Managers really in the US.
The demand for I think wealth advice is only going higher given the complexity of the operating environment. And let's be let's be disorder, said the way it is, wealth managers are aging out of the industry, so we need to bring the next generation of wealth managers into the market.
Sweeney Offspring number three is going into that business right now.
Take Yeah, that's cool.
Finally one out of forest following on Wall Street. I guess that's not a too bad of an average. How about consolidation in this business. There's a lot of you know, mom and pop advisors out there, and I would think, as you mentioned the complexity of the business, just managing the business getting so much more, is there going to see more consolidation do you think?
I think the consolidation is going to continue, to call it, and we sort of see this separation happen. You have a large number of firms now who are becoming even larger as a result of not only organic growth, but inorganic growth, and that's going to continue to sort of happen, we believe. And then at the other end of the spectrum, there are several niche firms who are going to continue to operate as they do, who operate at scale in
their market and stay at that size. But in order to get to that scale that I was just talking about a moment ago, as a result of M and A, you really do need more resiliency, more structure around what it is you're trying to do.
So took the point if you put these points together, Lisa Mantaya, I was just talking about game Stop and Paul was horrified and rolled his eyes. But the idea that a lot of young people and not even young people, but people think they can do this themselves, that they don't need help, and that they have the tools online to manage their own money. How do you what do you tell them with that?
I think that the tools are getting much much better for people to manage their own money, and the product availability and the education material is becoming much more prevalent in the marketplace. However, money is very emotional, and when you get to a certain asset level or wealth level, or your life complexity changes, having another person sitting there alongside of you to coach you through that and even
out those emotional spikes is super important. So I think the wealth industry is really well positioned over the next number of years, as wealth expands and it is the fastest growing marketplace, that there's going to be a need for wealth advisors, more of them and their role and their value in the relationship is only going to get greater as more complexity ners.
So since I've been on Wall Street more than thirty years, the story has been brokers leaving financial advisors, leaving the wirehouses and going out on their own.
Yeah, that hasn't changed, has it.
I don't think that has changed. I mean there is. Look, there's a shift in the industry. From when we started in the business, one hundred percent of the things that we did were commission based. Today the majority of the business that we have on our platform is advisory based. And so I think this idea of financial advisors, more and more of them needed for the industry, and the idea that some of them want to run their own
business will continue to sort of be a trend. But I think more of those firms now, Paul, are looking to land someplace as opposed to start of building something fresh from the start, because it's pretty it's pretty hard.
Jim, wonderful to chat with you. Thank you so much.
I learned a ton Jim Crowley, Global head of b and Yatt Melling's pershing and good luck on your keynotes.
You haven't given it yet, right, No, it's nott there all.
Right deep teas there enjoy that as well.
We have to wonder though, as people become more confident in their way of trading or operating, like are they how.
Long are they able to put off a financial advisor?
Does it come with the kid your first house? Like what is that trigger point to move the Yeah?
Exactly.
I mean I think this Jim was mentioning the complexity of managing money, whether it be you know, wealth management, taxes, you know, wills and estates on all.
Those types of things.
On the legal side of it as well, it gets pretty complex pretty quickly, and you start talking about real dollars and still met you that that is a big issue.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple card Play and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station just say Alexa playing Bloomberg eleven.
This is Bloomberg Intelligence Radio.
We cover all the top news and business and finance through our lens of our Bloomberg Intelligence analysts. They cover two thousand companies and one hundred and thirty industries worldwide and every once in a while.
He let us take the show on the road.
We get to broaden our outlook, particularly in the areas that really concern you as an investor. And we are here from the unbelievably huge Gaylord opry landa resort in Nashville, Tennessee, for B and Y Melons twenty six Annual Insight Conference, speaking about two thousand over two thousand financial intermediaries from top asset management firms will be here. And joining us
now to discuss all of it is Emily Schlosser. She's chief operating officer B and Y Melons Pershing and she joins us here on set.
Wonderful to see you.
Thanks a that it's going to be here now.
The highlight is that you're talking to Keith Urban on stage. Is that that's happening today.
That's happening on Thursday Thursday? Yes, and I agree it will be at the highlight.
So are you interviewing or is he interviewing you?
Oh?
For sure, I'm interviewing him, just checking. Yes, Yes, he is the star of the show.
And what do you guys to talk about?
They're handful of things that we're going to cover.
He has really interesting stories about his creative process, about overcoming diversity.
He is a real emphasis on putting in.
The hard work, which is something that we're sort of all about here at Bank of New York Mellon. So there are a lot of things that are analogous, and he will be giving us a little bit of a show too, So that'll be great.
Hey, Emily, and we're looking around here, there's you know, lots of financial advisors, registered investment advisors, lots of asset management providers.
What are some of the I guess it's operationally.
What are the challenges that these rias deal with every day when they're trying to establish relationships with clients, bring in new assets, manage the assets that they have.
What are some of the challenges they face?
Yeah, I think ultimately it comes down to productivity and scale. Really, their biggest challenge is to free up advisors so that
the advisors can spend more time with their clients. At Pershing, we've made it our mission to help advisors help more people, and we're doing that by creating the most connected and productive platform to power the future of wealth management and that notion of automation and allowing ris and broker dealers to operate at scales so that their advisors are spending less time doing administrative tasks and systems and more time out with their clients.
That's really what it's all about.
How hard it is to do all that to create that environment where people can just talk to their clients more.
It's very challenging, and there's a reason why it's taken us kind of this long in the maturity of our industry to get to a point where we can really
do that. We've seen studies that say advisors spend as much as sixty or seventy percent of their time doing administrative tasks, and so part of what we've done in rolling out a new advisory platform, which we launched at this conference last year, so it's the one year birthday of Wove, which is our advisory platform, is built from a from the ground up, an interconnected suite of tools for advisors to use to manage their day to day.
So it's not a patchwork of stuff that we've bought and tried to sort of stitch together.
This is really from the ground up. From its inception.
It was designed to be totally interconnected so that data flows seamlessly across the applications. Everything works together and advisors no longer have to kind of swivel between different applications, which just consumes an enormous amount of their time.
From a competitive perspective, from B and Y, Melon, how do you compete? What is it spending more on technology? How do you guys compete against your competitors out there?
Yeah, well, none of our competitors have the force like we have with.
This that the the world thopes.
Of Fidelity Schwag or some of the big players in our space. And really what we have with the entire ecosystem of of New York Melon is completely unique because we do have a massive technology organization that we can bring to bear with incredible amounts of investment spent on things like resiliency, cybersecurity, as well as the latest and
greatest in innovative tech generative AI. So we have this whole kind of force behind us from a technology perspective, and then we also have a world class investment management arm.
We have world class treasury services and payments capabilities.
So it really creates this whole wrapper around our core custody offering that amplifies what we can bring to the market in a way that nobody else can.
I judge myself for asking this question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. As chief operating officer. How do you use AI?
Oh?
Generative AI?
Oh?
Interesting?
So we are using AI in a lot of different ways. It's been available on our platform from some time, with natural language search and greater ability to navigate. All of our navigation prompts are customized based on what consumers use most. So it is learning along with the user to make the experience more user friendly and personalized.
And we are.
Leveraging tools that help us automate things like processing documents and running more of our operations straight through. We are we are playing quite heavily with generative AI, particularly internally for now, where we're able to kind of access information much more quickly and have the help of tools as we're kind of creating intel for our clients.
How about cybersecurity just data security in general. I'm guessing that's a constant source of investment for you guys.
How do you think about that? Yeah?
Constant.
It is one of the most impactful things that we can spend time on because the threats just keep amplifying kind of day over day. We see increasing threats from cyber challenges, and it's one of the reasons why having the Bank of New York Mellon behind Persians brand is so powerful. I mean, we are a two hundred and forty year old bank. We pride ourselves on being incredibly resilient, and we really are at the cutting edge of what's happening in the cybersecurity world.
What are you most excited about for the rest of this year.
I'm really excited about what some of the new technologies can bring in terms of productivity and scale. I mean, at its core, Generative AI is a productivity tool. Productivity is what we're all about, and I think it's one of the most kind of the biggest step changes in innovation.
That we've seen in recent history.
So I'm really excited to see what we can do with it.
If you lose a group of advisors from your platform, why do they leave?
Interesting? It doesn't happen often.
I Sometimes it's because they have chosen to consolidate go through M and A with a company that uses a different provider, So that's often what would drive the change. Sometimes it's a change engine model, or they're looking for an exit strategy, so they sell their firm.
Those would be the biggest drivers.
Well, what are the biggest questions that you're getting right now new advisors?
Yeah, the biggest questions I think do revolve around how do we just make ourselves more productive, more efficient? But then we also do have a lot of questions around how do we get more into the alternative space, how do we become more effective in providing investment offerings to our clients. So historically many advisors have also been portfolio managers.
I think more and more we're seeing clients looking towards that centralized office of investment that can be leveraged as more of a central utility, so that each advisor is not trying to be a portfolio manager on their own right, but are spending more time on things like financial planning and building relationships with clients.
Emily, we really appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Emily Schlosser, a chief operating officer at Bmy Melon's person.
Good luck with Keith Urban.
Thank you be super exciting, excited.
I love this for you. I want to get that. Thank you.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at ten am Eastern on Applecar Play and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station Just Say Alexa playing Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Hey, Alex Deel alongside Paul sw We need. This is Bloomberg Intelligence Radio. We bring you all the top news and analysts from our Bloomberg Intelligence arm. They cover two thousand companies and one hundred and thirty industries around the world.
And for now we are lucky because they're broadcasting live from Nashville, Tennessee, at the Gaylord Opryland Resort for B and Y Melons twenty six annual Inside Conference with over two thousand financial intermediaries from top asset management firms and joining us right here on set. Ben Harrison, head of Wealth Solutions at B and Y Melons, pershings.
Good to have you here, Ben, Thanks for stopping by.
More thanks for having me.
So your panel, which is Thursday is the future of financial Advice, Perspectives on the evolution of wealth management.
That seems nice and broad for you. What are you going to say? What's on the docket, what's on your mind?
Yeah, So it's going to be a great panel.
We've got a number of industry experts that are going to join me, and what we're going to talk about is there's really been a bull.
Market for financial advice.
If you look back over the last ten years, the wealth business has grown from twenty three trillion to fifty two trillion. It's really fueling the need for investors to have great advice from advisors. The conundrum is we're not creating more advisors. So there's about three hundred thousand advisors, so it's really teeing up this productivity of imperative that advisors need to deliver more for their clients and do so with more scale.
So we're speaking with Ben Harrison, head of Wealth Solutions at BNY Melon's Pershing here in Nashville. Ben, can you explain the different Can you explain to reason why I would leave a wirehouse like Merrill Lynch and become a registered investment advisor at an independent place.
Sure, so a lot of that demand is being driven by investors. Investors really are seeking fiduciary advice, comprehensive, holistic advice, an advisor that sits on the same side of the table as them and isn't sold products, but really it
purchases products to fulfill a goal based financial plan. So advisors are seeking an opportunity to be aligned with their clients and that gives them the opportunity to go out establish a registered investment advisor and have full control in order to complate experience.
There's no more Maryland stockbrokers there, aren't they advisors too?
Haven't they involved that business?
Yeah, we've definitely seen a convergence in the business models towards this goal oriented, holistic advice. So there's there's absolutely you know, we're seeing that from both sides of the market right now, and that's creating a lot of competition in the space.
Okay, so what is your advice for wealth managers say in the back half of this year?
Yeah, so we've been experiencing a market that you know, continues to have tailwinds, but clients have a ton of complexity in their lives. So it's all about focusing on the client needs and having a very clear, optimal client profile and delivering the solutions that an investor needs in order to solve anything that they may need to deal with in their personal lives.
Every town USA has a Smith Barney office. You know, are more in Stanley office size I should say a Merrill Lynch office.
Plus three or four registered advisors offices.
Does there need to be consolidation among the rias or is it better to be able to Hey, we're small, we're local, we know our clients.
How's that trend evolving?
Yeah, we're seeing a tremendous amount of solidation in the space. The mergers and acquisitions that we see in terms of aggregators and roll ups coming into the space and taking out some of the smaller firms and rolling them into wealth practices is absolutely happening. It's not slowing down. That's going to continue to accelerate. But at the same time, there is room for advisors to have unique value propositions
for clients in communities. And what we've seen is that clients have a propensity to.
Work with people.
Despite the fact there are so many digital solutions and ways to leverage AI and other unique capabilities in the marketplace. Investors want to work with a person and if you can deliver a great value proposition, then you've got a business to be had.
So what is the right ARIA model, the registered investment advisor model? Like, what is the right model for someone.
I think it all depends on what the client need is. It depends on where they are in their in their life cycle. Are they at the stage of their life where they are accumulating assets.
Are they at the stage of life where.
They're planning for retirement or drawing down. Are they a massiffluent investor, are they a high net worth investor?
Are they ultra high net worth investor? And there are.
Flavors of registered investment advisors as well as broker dealers and as you mentioned, other financial professionals that solve for a variety of those different needs.
We've been coming to this event for several years now.
In a common theme has been you want your advisors to be able to spend more time with their clients, less time on the administrative work. Is that just a function of technology, integrating technology more into the everyday work of an advisor.
Yeah, that's we've talked a little bit about that. In terms of this productivity imperative. We know that there's a you know, significant demand for advice. There is not as many advisors to fulfill that demand. So it's really incumbent that we have the right tools in technology so that advisors can spend more of their time with clients and less of their time working on the back office or
the tools in which to do so. That's a big focus on our strategy at Pershing in our mission to help advisors help more people, and a lot of the tools and technology that we are showcasing at this event does just that. We're excited about rolling out some of the new things that we have with our Wove platform.
Here's something just broader.
You know, everyone's just living longer and there's a question as to sort of like when should.
You retire, how much money do you really need for retirement? And nobody really knows the answer to any of this.
How do you talk to clients about that? Because I have to think that that is.
A huge worry.
And when you normally retire at like sixty five, but then you're dying at seventy, that's one thing, but that's not happening anymore.
Yeah, you're absolutely right, and this is something that advisors really need to work with and investors need to really consider the lifespan that they potentially have in front of them, including health benefits and healthcare. That we see this idea of advisors delivering more, it's getting well beyond just investments.
It used to be an investment game.
Now it is a planning game of all the complexities of one's lives, whether it be healthcare, whether it be long term care, whether it be benefits that.
Advisors need to think about.
So we're seeing lifetime income becoming a very important tool that's utilized in a comprehensive portfolio, insurance, tax, all of these things.
I have permanent life insurance, Like I got that when I was like thirty six, because I'm so terrified of like what happens when there is no social security and I'm like eighty and I need assisted.
Living absolutely, And for the emerging population coming up to be completely different for us than it was for generations ahead of us.
Well, what are some other big themes that you guys talk about a lot?
Like what's the next year? What are we gonna be talking about next year at this conference?
So there's a there's a lot on the horizon that we think about each and every day in our business. We see artificial intelligence, you know, playing a big role in the marketplace right now. We see alternative investments continuing to emerge and rise in terms of getting into the retail investing population. You hit on a couple of the other things in terms of the longevity of portfolios and
that people are living longer. So there's there's a tremendous amount of things that people are thinking about in terms of navigating how you how you contend with that with your personal finances.
What do you think about alternative investing in terms of the conversation with well both managers right now.
Yeah, we've definitely seen an uptick in terms of the appetite for alts in retail investors portfolios.
We know that they've been utilized.
In institutional portfolios for years and years, and now they are taking a strong place in the individual investor portfolio.
And we're moving away from.
Sixty forty type of allocation to one that includes alternative investments as an important part of the individual investor portfolio.
Ben, thanks so much. We really appreciate you stopping by. I know it's quite busy for you, but thank you. Ben Harrison, head of Wealth Solutions at BNY Mellon's Pershing and joining us right here in Nashville, Tennessee.
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Out Steal. Paul Sweeney. We are live in Nashville, Tennessee.
We are at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and National here for the BNY Mellon Insight Conference. I've got about two thousand financial advisors here and they're talking about the future of the wealth management business. Our next guest is Serena Dollar book Bookshire. She is the chief product officer for B and Y Melling's Purge and joining us live here. What kind of products are you hearing from your wealth advisors about?
Digital?
Absolutely so on the digital.
Side, crypto.
I'm thinking generally broadly defined, you know, what kind of do they are they asking you about crypto?
I think that there is you know, maybe reduced interest in that at the moment, but I think that you know, overall, you know, there we we we we exist to serve a wide variety of products that's on our shelves, and so as we continue to monitor the regulatory landscape around that, you know, we we you know, that's that's something that
you know, we can school in the future. But as I would say from a broader digital standpoint, really, you know what we hear the most of is around productivity and scale and ultimately, really how do we help our advisors do their best work by ultimately giving them time back through connected tech, connected data and connected experiences.
And we're speaking with Serena and Dalla Brookshire, chief product officer at BNY. Melon's pershing which time about product innovation. So what's the product that you've launched, say in the last year that has really helped those issues that you're trying to address, just making wealth advisors more efficient and more able to spend time.
With their clients.
Yeah, so some of them you'll hear about later this afternoon. But what I can share where I feel like there's a lot of really good energy around this is within our net next three sixty platform. We've built a lot around personalization and so how that takes shape investing in
aimergent capabilities is ultimately personalized menus, personalized navigation. We actually recently implemented a feature around asking a question to really reduce the time spent on reporting and compliance related analytics, and ultimately something that took upwards to twenty to thirty
minutes now takes a mere matter of seconds. So that's one innovation that we're really excited about and want to continue to press on as we think about different ways for our advisors and their teams to do more with less.
But they always open to technology, or to some folks just like in life, you know, less open to me maybe if you haven't older or something like that.
I mean, product adoption certainly has a spectrum of early to late adopters, but ultimately, right as you think about ways that actually benefit you, we've seen a lot of adoption, right because ultimately, as you've probably heard in some of these other segments, right, there's a finite amount of advisors today, a proliferation of high quality advice, and we just advisors need to adapt their practices and how they work to meet those demands.
How does it usually work, Like do your clients come to you and say, hey, I really need help with this or is it you being like you really need help with that.
You just don't know it yet.
Great question, and actually part of one of the one of the things that we instituted in this new Product organization was really around how we work, and so part of our philosophy is you need to be client obsessed, data driven, and we need to have direct sort of co creation with our client base, and so that's something
that we've been really kind of pushing towards. And so ultimately it's a combination of us looking at market data, monitoring the trends, working hand in hand with our advisors to understand kind of the pain points, observing them directly, you know, looking at say do gaps, what do you say, what do we hear, what do we observe? And then and figuring out ways to kind of build solutions that really are steeped in that problem space.
So what's a say do gap? I've never heard this before, and you know, it's it's like when we say.
You want to lose weight, but then you're you know, your pantry is full of potato chips, right, So it's sort of that say do gap around what you say and what you actually do and sort of a.
GAPTI and I want more sleep, but then I don't go to betterly correct Okay, yeah, okay.
So I talk to us about like, what are some of the trends you're seeing there in products?
What do you what are your clients asking you for more of better of that kind of thing.
Yeah, So on the digital side, as I mentioned, right, they want you know, streamlined workflows. They want more efficient ways to onboard clients. They want ways to sort of scale their practice. They want new tools to connect all of the various systems and data so that they have a swivel chair so they don't have to sort of context switch in the moment. And we're finding that on average that saves almost about two plus hours a day.
And then from an investment standpoint, right, there's a lot around you know, alternatives being sort of a growth area, right, especially with the expansion of the private markets and just overall impact on investment outcomes and then clearly right growth and ETF So looking for different flavors to fill the portfolio.
Maybe one lass.
Single add is just you know, we we see more and more investors driving the conversation son of investors want an advisor that quote unquote gets me, right, and so what that means and seventy percent actually want an advisor that shares their personal values and so what that means As an advisor, you got to know your clients.
Really, really well.
And you got to be able to spend the time with them. And so ultimately, what we're trying to do here is help help advisors help more people. And so we believe that the combination of these sort of investment solutions and connected digital solutions gets advisors closer to that What are some of.
The problems that you foresee that product will need to solve for that just don't have answers yet.
That doesn't have answers yet. I mean, I think that you know, looking at broader sort of access, you know, I think we're starting to see a lot of democratization of products and sort of bringing institutional products more down market. I think that you'll continue to see more of that as a trend, just so more and more people have access to high quality advice and high quality products. And then I think, you know, as you look at managed accounts and advice more generally, like how do you ensure
the most efficient way to deliver that? I think those are some areas and then maybe one more is just we're seeing more and more clients really want to have like their full balance sheet together. They want the ease of seeing if you are an advised client to have your wealth solutions and your banking together makes sense, and so that's where you're going to start to see some of that also come together over time.
Serena, thanks so much for joining us.
Really appreciate it, Serena Dala Brokshire, Chief product Officer bny Melling's purge and joining us live here in this vast what do we call them? This room here, like I just, oh, my goshitorium.
It is enormous.
It is huge.
It's huge, and this is where it's all happening. So here we're Nashville where the Gaylord grand Old Opry. I did some business with the Gaylord family back in the day when they owned TNN to cable network and they owned country music television. So in addition to all these resorts they have here, so some good times stand here.
But this place is massive. It's got everything you want down here.
It's a great place to have a conference because plus you also have access to Nashville when all the stuff that's there.
I feel like resort is like an understatement though, Like I literally have an app that I had to use to get directions somewhere to get from my hotel room to hear like Google Maps.
That's not resorts.
That's I don't know's it's Vegas. It's kind of like Vegas. It's like.
We will certainly hit your step count. Yes, I'm hoping. I'll check on that for you.
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