Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news, and one of the big stories we're taking a look at today is well, the history of one of the oldest banks in the world, Bank of New York Mellon Market is two hundred and forty years in business. The bank was founded back in seventeen eighty four by Alexander Hamilton, making it the oldest bank here in the US and one of the top twenty banks in terms of age worldwide that's still in
continuous operations. I had to sat down chance to sit down exclusively with the CEO of BNY Mellon, Robin Vince, to discuss the milestone and more importantly, what's next.
How do you keep a firm like this relevant? Take a listen.
Two hundred and forty years is a long time. We've operated over four centuries of history, particularly New York history, and we're getting together with some clients to actually enjoy that and make sure that we mark the moment. We're actually the oldest operating longest operating company in New York, with the oldest member of the B five hundred and Fortune five hundred and the first stop listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
But we're looking forward.
So innovation at the end of the day is an important part of this story too.
Well, let's talk about that innovation.
I mean, you don't get to two hundred and forty years by just dumblock. I mean, even if you go through the list of some of the banks that sort were born out of the birth of this nation, at least you're in the United States and the ones that are still there, I mean, what gets you to another to forty It's not just going to be the same playbook.
Isn't it.
Well, I think you're exactly right that innovation is at the very heart of that. You only get to be old if you're resilient and if you're innovative focused on your customers.
At the end of the.
Day, it's our clients that guide our progress as a company and to operate through all of the different ups and downs that we see the world wars that have occurred over our history, the very birth of the nation. Literally the British were leaving just months before the foundation of our company. You have to be resilient, you have to focus on your customers, and you have to.
When we talk about sort of the next big structural changes that are going to shake up banking, shake up.
The finance industry. Right now, there's a lot of talk about AI.
Is that moment here now or is this still something in the future that you're preparing for.
Well, the answer is both. It is here.
There are opportunities now, but those opportunities are going to get more and more exciting over the coming years. I was actually just back from the West Coast where I spent time with some of the luminaries of the AI industry, really hearing their thoughts and participating with some others in a few different sessions and just trying to peak over the horizon about what's in store.
And I think it's going to be very important.
I think it's going to create great opportunities for our client facing businesses to be able to do more for our clients. I think it's going to help us to run our company better. And I also think it's going to be something that's going to give benefit to our people to be able to take some of the drudgery out of some aspects of work and actually help them to be able to focus on the things that are
going to add the most value. So I think it's to be honest, it can be a win win win, but it's going to take a little bit of time. Let's talk a little bit more about what's going on today. You just had earnings about a month ago. Here they please a lot of investors.
The turnaround that you've been orchestrating there seems they've really taken hold. There's a lot of focus right now on organic growth or investors are focusing on organic growth. How much do you see that organic growth rate, the one that you just posted in the most recent quarter continuing through the rest of the year.
Well, our team has been laser focused over the past eighteen months on helping our firm really be more for our clients, and that's the very heart for us of organic growth. We have this incredible franchise around the world. We serve so many clients all around the world in all parts of the financial system, and yet we do relatively few things with many of them. So the opportunity to do more of the things that we do, bring more of our platforms to our clients is a very
significant opportunity. We have a terrific franchise and so it's really about approaching it through that lens that creates organic growth. We are excited about the fact that we have really been generating more organic growth, and obviously we're hopeful that we'll be able to.
Continue to do that. As part of our.
Journey geographically, where is most of that growth going to come from? Is it going to be here in the US, North America or Europe, Asian Middle East?
Where it's truly around the world. We serve clients all across the globe now. I do think there's a lot of opportunity in the US right now, given everything that's going.
On in the economy here.
But we're also in the import export business of financial services, So we help our international clients access the United States markets, and we help our US clients be able to go out and access markets all around the world, whether it be people who want to bring capital in or who want to be able to go take capital into other parts of the world. We have that knowledge, that expertise and the local on the ground experience to be able to help clients.
Are you seeing more demand for that, not only just from existing clients, but from potentially new clients as well well.
There's certainly demand in the United States for capital because the US economy has really surprised many people, I think with how well it's been.
Doing, and there's.
Just a lot of interest in participating in this market. And then outside of the US, the world's a pretty complicated space right now. We have wars in different regions, we have complexities on the geopolitics side, and so clients want that expert navigation advice on how to actually go about doing their businesses in the most efficient ways.
When you look at some of the disruptions going on out there geopolitically, the wars, disruptions and shipping routes, everything else going on, do you see those as sort of passing things, meaning something that could be resolved within the next couple of years and then we go back to whatever the normal is or is this something we're just going to have to live with and adjust to for years to come.
Well, here's where I'm going to go back to being two hundred and forty years old as a company. I obviously can't look back myself over that whole period of time, But the world is a complicated place, and we have had many episodes in history where there have been different things.
Tensions that go on can be in politics, it can be in geopolitics, and so I think we should all recognize that we have to be prepared for those types of situations, and we actually think that being resilient and being prepared is just part of how you have to operate as a great company.
These days, with regards to economic conditions, both here in the US and abroad, there's been a lot of talk about where the economic cycle is and whether it's going to be favorable to banks. When you look at the economic conditions, you look at the interest rate backdrop, are you comfortable.
Well, another way that you get to be old is never by being comfortable, by always challenging yourself. Got to be a little bit skeptical about the world in order to make sure that we're looking around the corners seeing the risks. This was a lesson that some firms learned the hard way last year when they weren't prepared. So we view being cautious, thoughtful, and prepared as an essential part of operating.
Now.
Having said all of that, I do think that the US economy has surprised to the upside over the course of the past year or so. We've seen that with inflation being stickier. It's kind of a nice problem to have because it's really been the manifestation of the fact that we're benefiting from a whole bunch of different things in the US right now. We have interest from abroad in terms of investing in the United States. We have a relative abundance of raw materials, not everything, but a lot.
We have energy independence, that's a big deal. We certainly saw the examples of that of not having that in Europe over the course of the past couple of years.
We have availability of labor.
Those things are contributing to a very significant upside in the US economy. We've had a little bit of industrial policy. We've got the innovation that we just talked about for AI.
These things collectively are really creating a pretty powerful economic engine. Now, not everybody has been participating in it, but for the sixty percent of Americans who participate in the stock market, there's been a psychological boost there when they see those new highs, and that contributes to spending, and there's a circular process here which feeds back to inflation.
And that is the CEO of B and Y Melon Robin Vince, celebrating a two hundred and fortieth anniversary of that financial institution