40% of our artificial intelligence hubs are in India: BNY CEO Robin Vince

Tariffs are part of the story, but it's really about trade, says Vince

ROBIN VINCE, chief executive officer (CEO) of The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (BNY) — one of the oldest financial institutions in the United States with a strong global presence in asset servicing, investment management, and wealth management — spoke with Manojit Saha and Subrata Panda in Pune about India’s growing significance in the lender’s strategy. Edited excerpts:

 

How do you see the India story evolving and how can BNY be a part of it?

 

India is the world’s fourth-largest economy and has one of the leading engineering-mindset populations. As a company, we are becoming more technology-driven, so this is a critical place for us to be. We have 40 per cent of our AI (artificial intelligence) hubs located here in India. Tapping into that expertise and those capabilities, and being part of the growing economy, is essential for us. We have 18,000 people in India; this is our single-largest location in the world in terms of headcount.

 

I don’t link the number of staff to the success and growth of the company. The next-generation growth isn’t about having more people. It’s about greater capabilities and what those people can do. So, the productivity of these 18,000 people is going to increase significantly because of artificial intelligence (AI). We are ensuring we have access to AI talent and the best engineers. And we hire them here in India. Some of our global AI hub leaders are based here.

 

Any plans to add a global capability centre (GCC) in any other location in India?

 

We have six around the world. We call them strategic global locations. Two of them are here in India — Pune and Chennai — two in the US, and one each in England and Poland. We are happy with these six. The GCC in Pune, with 11,000 people, is by far the biggest. The second-largest is Pittsburgh, with 6,000 people.

 

What is your assessment of the turmoil in the world because of US tariffs? Have your businesses been impacted by it?

 

Tariffs are part of the story, but it’s really about trade. Some countries will embrace the change and will think about how to end up with the best trading relationship with the US. Like, India is obviously being talked about in the US a lot as one of the leading partners for really looking to try to create a new trade deal. And it will be important that we see progress on that because the uncertainty in the market has been unhelpful. We have said that publicly in our earnings call that we have benefited a bit from that uncertainty.

 

We see a series of megatrends in the world, one of which is the increased use of partners for outsourcing.

 

As we look across things today, there’s no business of ours that is significantly negatively impacted. There are some businesses that have benefited a bit from the fact that volumes have been higher because we are a platforms company. So, we haven’t seen any significant dislocations from the environment for our businesses.

 

Should we expect another round of selloff of US treasuries when the pause on reciprocal tariffs is lifted?

 

The treasury market has certainly fluctuated over the past few weeks. There has been higher volume in the US treasury market since the White House’s original announcement of the tariff plan. But that happens. When there’s market uncertainty or a change in direction, activity tends to spike. I wouldn’t describe it as particularly unusual.

 

What is your take on interest rates going forward?

 

There’s the piece that the Federal Reserve directly controls, which is the Fed funds rate. But then there’s the broader interest rate curve, which, in many respects, is more important than the overnight rate.

 

In the grand scheme of things, rates are still at a relatively low level than history would suggest for the type of environment that we have had over the course of the past couple of years. A US treasury yield of 4.5 per cent, in the context of a strong economy, is not unusual. Arguably, it’s on the lower side.

 

The Fed is a data-driven organisation. And they are not normally in the business of reacting ahead of time to things that could evolve. I think they are doing sort of what they have said they would do, which is watch the data. And Chair Powell's been pretty consistent about that all along. And so that's kind of what they are doing. And they don't have the data to be able to make another decision right now.

 

How is BNY using AI in India?

 

I think AI is going to change the provision of services in most industries, including in financial services. So, 40 per cent of our AI hub team is based here in India. So if you want a measure of relative importance and investment, that’s probably the best measure. We have one AI platform around the world – Eliza. We run what's called a multi-agentic framework for AI, and we are connected to and use all the large general intelligence models, the large language models, including OpenAI.

 

Much of our AI innovation is happening right here (in India). We focus our investments where there is talent. And there is an enormous amount of AI talent and engineering talent here in India.

 

How much do India operations contribute to your topline?

 

We don’t break down revenue by individual country. But 40 per cent of our revenue comes from outside the US, including Europe, India, and Asia-Pacific.

 

You can look at things through several lenses. The importance of India for us, it's one of the most important countries that we do business in.

 

How significant is your presence in the wealth management space in India?

 

Our wealth business is bigger in the US and globally. We don’t do local wealth management in most other countries. Our wealth management business is either ultra-high-net-worth people who really operate across the world or a bit more specifically in the US.

 

Are you looking to enter the asset management space in India?

 

I don’t think we have any current plans for that. We are not a significant asset manager in India. We are a much bigger service of investment managers. Our biggest businesses are the provision of custody capabilities, operational capabilities, software capabilities, accounting capabilities for asset managers. That we provide globally, including in India.

 

India’s central bank’s stance on private digital assets is very different from that of the current US administration. What needs to be done to have a uniform policy globally?

 

We view digital assets as most interesting from a technology point of view. They provide new capabilities for maintaining ledgers. We have been in the ledger business for 240 years, since we started as a bank. So, we understand how to keep ledgers, and blockchain and distributed ledger technologies are new ways of doing that. We have been innovating in space.

 

The big equity and bond markets in the world are incredibly efficient. It's hard for radical innovation to be able to make them more efficient. They could evolve further with these technologies, but the biggest short-term application for these capabilities are in some of the asset classes that are a bit more inefficient. So, lending and physical commodity markets are not very efficient in the global financial system. We see those as opportunities. If you agree that having digital ledgers is a useful capability for some asset classes over time, it’s necessary to have a digital currency to settle on the blockchain.

 

Bitcoin and Ethereum are quite volatile currencies. And so they don't represent the stability that most participants would be looking for on-chain transactions. They may be useful for other things. That’s where an on-chain capability is required. And then different governments can have different perspectives.

 

Some might prefer a central bank digital currency. Some might prefer a private sector stable coin. There are different solutions to that problem, and I think we will see different countries probably take different solutions. But in the US what they have said is that they are enthusiastic about digital assets. They weren't before, but the new administration is more enthusiastic. And then as part of that, they are also supportive of private sector stable coins. I would expect that we will play a role in that space because this is where having trust and breadth of reach and a significant network effect are quite useful.

 

But how will it be interoperable if different countries have different policies regarding digital currencies?

 

We’ll need standard-setting over time to ensure interoperability. We are going to need trusted participants. It's one of the reasons why I disagree with the fact that digital finance is all decentralised and all no trust.

 

What will be your suggestion to the Indian policymakers as far as digital currency is concerned?

 

I would start with saying that tokenisation and thinking about how digital assets can play a role in the financial system is going to be important because it’s a little bit like AI. It’s an evolution that’s happening. So, it’s important to be a participant in it in order to be able to help shape the direction, not be left to the side and then later on have to play catch up with it. Both AI and digital assets are going to be important things.