Robin Vince, CEO of Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (BNY), America’s oldest financial institution with global operations, in an exclusive conversation with Manojit Saha and Subrata Panda, discusses the growing importance of India in BNY’s business strategy. They candidly talked about a variety of issues, including the impact of Trump tariffs on business and the transformative role of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Here are the highlights:
How can BNY play its role in India’s growth story?
India is the fourth largest economy in the world. It has a leading population of engineering talent in the world. Being a largely technology-driven company, this is a very important place for us. 40 percent of our Artificial Intelligence centers are in India. It is very important for us to take advantage of the expertise and capabilities here and become a part of the ever-growing economy. We employ approximately 18,000 people in India and are our largest location in the world in terms of employees.
Are you planning to set up more Global Competence Centers (GCC) in India?
We have six GCCs around the world. We call them strategic global locations. Two of them are in Pune and Chennai. Apart from this, two GCCs are in America, one in Ireland and one in Poland. These six GCCs are enough for us for now. Pune’s GCC is the largest with 11,000 employees. In this respect, the second largest GCC is of Pittsburgh where 6,000 people work.
What would you say about the turmoil caused in the world due to tariffs?
The fee is really about business. There will be many countries who will adopt this change and think about building the best trade relations with America. For example, there is a lot of discussion about India in America because India-America are negotiating a new trade deal. As far as our business is concerned, we have said publicly in our conversation with analysts that we have benefited a little from this uncertainty. At present it has not had a negative impact on any of our businesses.
Can the selling of US bonds resume after the ban on retaliatory duties is lifted?
The bond market has certainly been volatile over the past few weeks. There has been heavy selling in the US bond market since the tariff plan was announced. But this keeps happening. Activity may increase at some places when there is uncertainty in the market or its direction changes. But I wouldn’t call it unusual.
What will be the interest rate situation going forward?
The Federal Reserve directly controls what is called the fed funds rate. But the real interest rate is, in many cases, much more important than the Federal Reserve’s overnight rate. When our economy has been very strong, 4.5 percent interest on US bonds is not unusual. But you can say that it is below the level where it should have been. The Federal Reserve is a data-driven organization that generally reacts to issues ahead of time. I understand Chairman Powell is watching the data. At present they do not have any data to take any other decision.
How is BNY using AI in India?
I think AI is going to change the landscape of services across many industries, including financial services. So 40 percent of our AI center team is here in India. In such a situation, if you want to make a comparative assessment of its importance and investment, then perhaps this is the best measurement. Our AI platform around the world is ELIZA. We run a multi-agent framework for AI and we are connected to and use all the major general intelligence models, large language models, including OpenAI. There is a lot of AI innovation happening in India. This is the right country and environment for this because talents emerge from IIT institutes here. We focus on investing only where there is sufficient talent. India is rich in AI and engineering talent.
What is the contribution of Indian business to the revenue?
We do not prepare figures for individual countries’ contributions. But 40 percent of our revenue comes from outside the US. This includes Europe, India, Asia-Pacific region etc. You can look at things from many perspectives. India is very important for us and is one of the important countries where we do business. 18,000 people work here to power our business. We do a lot of innovation. We also have people here who work on the next generation of products.
How significant is your presence in the wealth management sector in India?
Our wealth management business is large not only in the US but also globally. We don’t do local wealth management in most other countries. Our wealth management business is either ultra-high net worth individuals.
First Published – May 1, 2025 | 11:50 PM IST
