The wealth management sector is evolving, and the US-headquartered firm, with operations in regions such as EMEA, plans to ensure that it captures a large revenue opportunity, it tells this publication.

BNY Pershing, part of BNY , aims to double its revenue in Europe, the Middle East and Africa within five years by serving the evolving needs it sees arising from the retail wealth management industry.

“We are bolstering our existing foothold in EMEA and capitalising on the demand for innovative solutions across the retail wealth industry that comes with widespread transformation,” Colin Murphy, chief commercial officer, BNY Pershing, EMEA, said in an interview.

Murphy’s teams cover sales, relationship and product management for its businesses in the UK, Ireland, the Channel Islands, and continental Europe. That’s a lot of work, and a task he relishes.

In the business Murphy works in, most clients are based in the UK, Ireland and the Channel Islands: they are discretionary wealth managers, private banks, advisors, platforms, and investment boutiques. Most assets remain in the UK, he said. 

However, there are a number of forces shaping the wealth management industry requiring firms to evolve.

Murphy gave examples such as increasing end-user demand for tech-enabled products, enhanced accessibility of listed equities through dedicated investor portals, and the availability of non-traditional products amid an appetite for diversified investments. 

At a time when the business world can be rattled by market gyrations, fraught geopolitics, cybersecurity threats, and even non-malicious outages and various other contingencies, a selling point for BNY Pershing is its scale, stability and high commitment to security. This business has operated in Europe for more than 35 years.

“Our proposition is to combine the long-term stability and resilience of our business across market cycles with the imperative agility to respond to industry influences, developing solutions embedded in personalisation, tech-enablement and efficiency,” Murphy said. 

The work that BNY Pershing does – handling much of the financial infrastructure (custody, settlement, technology support) that other firms, such as wealth managers, cannot afford to do – is a scale business. The larger the sums, the more economies of scale count and reduce costs. In its first-quarter 2024 financial figures, BNY reported that it had $48.8 trillion in assets under custody and administration across its entire business – a colossal sum. 

Murphy’s appointment last year was followed by the hire of Umar Zaman as head of strategy for its EMEA business, based in London. Last August, BNY appointed Cécile Nagel as global head of the Corporate Trust. She took over from James Slater, who retired. Before that role, Nagel was head of BNY Pershing’s EMEA business, a post she had held since 2022, when she joined the firm. Nagel was replaced by Dennis Wallestad. (This news service interviewed her, here.)

A good view
A firm such as this has a ringside seat, so to speak, on the flows of money around the system. 

Murphy said he is seeing wealth clients move to more model-based investment approaches, one that firms like because it enables greater scale alongside mass customisation of offerings. 

WealthBriefing asked Murphy about a point that this publication had noted recently – some banks and other firms appear to struggle to make a mass-affluent proposition viable. “The customer experience can, to a degree, be customised through improved technology. An increasing amount of wealth managers are positioning themselves to cater to that [mass-affluent] middle ground,” he continued. 

"The threat of cybersecurity incidents remains a big one for the wealth and wider financial services sector. It is a critically important topic these days,” he said.

“Helping protect our clients from cyber threats is a core part of our service,” Murphy added.