BNY Mellon is looking toward digitization and automation to increase efficiency, drive down operational costs and improve consumer experience.  

WHY IT MATTERS: The $425 billion bank focused on digitally cleaning inefficient operations and planning medium- and long-term digitization efforts, Chief Executive Robin Vince said during BNY Mellon’s second-quarter earnings call today.

The bank’s Q2 software and equipment spending jumped by 11% year over year to $450 million, according to the earnings presentation.   

BNY Mellon is also looking to reorganize its operations and combine multiple financial offerings, which have existed in a silo in the past, to drive revenue and bring down costs.  

One example is integrating investment management in larger institutional offerings, which was landlocked into its own silo in the company in the past, Chief Financial Officer Dermot McDonogh said.  

The bank joins Citibank in boosting automation efforts. Citibank increased its Q2 tech spend by 12% YoY to $2.3 billion.  

BY THE NUMBERS: In Q2, BNY Mellon reported:  

• Revenue grew 5% YoY to $4.5 billion;  
• Net interest revenue increased 33% YoY to $1.1 billion; and  
• Pershing, BNY Mellon’s technology arm, saw its revenue jump by 8% YoY to $686 million.  

NOTEWORTHY: During the quarter, the New York-based bank launched Wove, a digital wealth management platform, and aims to grow its offering in the second half of the year.   

“The client pipeline is growing nicely, which we’ll report on more in the quarters ahead,” Vince said.   

WHAT THEY ARE SAYING: According to Zacks Equity Research, BNY Mellon investment in technology could hurt the company’s bottom line in the near term.  

“Given the inflationary pressure and the company’s efforts to upgrade operations with updated technology, overall costs are expected to remain elevated in the near term,” the Zacks report stated.  

FLASHBACK: Last year, the bank collected nearly 1,500 ideas from employees on how to make operations more efficient, Vince said. The bank is looking to implement some of those ideas over the next one to five years, he said.  

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