Bank of New York Mellon Q3 2024 Earnings Report

Bank of New York Mellon EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $1.52
• Consensus EPS: $1.41
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.11
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Bank of New York Mellon Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $4.65 billion
• Expected Revenue: $4.52 billion
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$124.79 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Bank of New York Mellon Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q3 2024
• Date: 10/11/2024
• Time: N/A
• Conference Call Date: Friday, October 11, 2024
• Conference Call Time: 11:00AM ET

BNY, formerly known as BNY Mellon, is a global financial services company headquartered in New York City. Formed in 2007 through the merger of the Bank of New York and Mellon Financial Corporation, BNY traces its roots back to 1784, making it one of the oldest banking institutions in the United States. It was also the first company listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

BNY operates at the center of the world's capital markets, partnering with clients to help them operate more efficiently and accelerate growth. The company serves over 90% of Fortune 100 companies and nearly all of the top 100 banks globally. Its services span asset management, custody and securities services, government finance, and pension plan management, touching approximately 20% of the world's investable assets.

As of the end of 2025, BNY oversees $59.3 trillion in assets under custody and/or administration and $2.2 trillion in assets under management, making it the world's largest custodian bank and securities services company.

BNY Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• BNY reported strong Q3 results with EPS of $1.50 up 22% year over year, revenue up 5% to $4.6 billion, flat expenses, a 33% pretax margin and 23% return on tangible common equity.
• The firm surpassed $50 trillion in assets under custody and administration for the first time, cementing its No. 1 market position and enhancing opportunities across its business portfolio.
• It announced the acquisition of Archer and launched AltsBridge to expand managed-account and alternatives solutions, aiming to drive future fee growth in its wealth and investment platforms.
• BNY advanced its platform operating model by on-boarding about 13,000 employees, streamlining operations and fostering integrated “One BNY” client coverage across its businesses.
• The bank maintained a robust capital profile with an 11.9% CET1 ratio and 6% Tier 1 leverage, returned 103% of year-to-date earnings through dividends and buybacks, and expects to exceed 100% for full-year 2024.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good morning, and welcome to the 2024 Q3 Earnings Conference Call Hosted by BNY. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. Please note that this conference call and webcast will be recorded and will consist of copyrighted material. You may not record or rebroadcast these materials without BNY's consent. I will now turn the call over to Marius Merz, BNY Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

[Marius Merz, Head of Investor Relations at BNY Mellon]

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our Q3 earnings call. I'm joined by Robin Vince, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Dermot McDonagh, our Chief Financial Officer. As usual, we will reference our financial highlights presentation, which can be found on the investor relations page of our website at bny.com. I'll also note that our remarks will contain forward-looking statements and non-GAAP measures.

[Marius Merz, Head of Investor Relations at BNY Mellon]

Actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Information about these statements and non-GAAP measures are available in the earnings press release, financial supplement, and financial highlights presentation, all available on the investor relations page of our website. Forward-looking statements made on this call speak only as of today, 11 October 2024, and will not be updated. With that, I will turn it over to Robin.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

Thanks, Marius. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. I'll start with a few remarks on the quarter, Dermot will take you through the financials in greater detail. In short, BNY reported strong third-quarter results, reflecting growth across our three business segments and consistent execution on our strategic priorities.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

Stepping back on the macro side for a moment, at the beginning of the year, markets had priced in significant monetary policy easing in anticipation of economic slowdowns. Despite numerous shifts in the macroeconomic outlook since then, we've now seen the start of the easing cycle in several markets around the world, including a fifty basis point reduction in policy rates in the U.S., as the Federal Reserve recalibrates its policy stance to balance employment, inflation, and growth.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

Following increased market volatility and a sell-off in equities in early August, markets recovered and both equity and fixed income values ended the quarter higher. A little more micro, but relevant for markets. Around the most recent quarter end, the market saw simultaneous flows into the Fed's reverse repo facility, alongside the first meaningful usage of the standing repo facility, both of which we administer.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

At the same time, sponsored, cleared repo volumes increased on the back of higher repo rates, possibly signaling a transition from abundant to ample reserves in the system, with potential implication for the pace of QT going forward. More broadly, while markets have been constructive, there are clearly risks and uncertainties ahead, we constantly prepare and position for the many tail risks that exist, from geopolitical tensions and conflicts to fiscal deficits and the impact of impending regulations and elections.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

Now referring to page two of the financial highlights presentation. As I said earlier, BNY delivered a strong financial performance in Q3, with strong EPS growth on the back of broad-based revenue growth and positive operating leverage. Reported earnings per share of $1.50 were up 22% year-over-year, and excluding notable items, earnings per share of $1.52 were up 20%.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

Total revenue of $4.6 billion increased by 5% year-over-year, and reported expenses of $3.1 billion were flat. Excluding the impact of notable items, expenses were up 1% year-over-year as we continue to invest in our people and technology, while we also generate greater efficiencies from running our company in new and better ways.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

Pre-tax margin and return on tangible common equity improved year-over-year to 33% and 23%, respectively. For the first time in our history, we reported over $50 trillion of assets under custody and/or administration at the end of the quarter. Now, custody is not something we are, but it is something important that we do.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

This number one market position improves our unique vantage point as a global financial services company, and it provides opportunity to drive value across our portfolio of adjacent businesses to deliver more of BNY to our clients. We increasingly see that the true power of BNY's client franchise exists in the combination of capabilities across our leading security services, market and wealth services, and investments and wealth businesses.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

We have the ability to enhance this and to deliver more to our clients by bringing new, innovative solutions to the market from across the seams of these businesses. As an example, we recently announced the planned acquisition of Archer, a leading technology-enabled service provider of managed account solutions to the asset and Wealth Management industry.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

Archer provides comprehensive technology and operational solutions that allow asset and wealth managers to access one of the fastest-growing investment vehicles in the industry, managed accounts at scale, expanding distribution, streamlining operations, launching new investment products, and delivering personalized outcomes for their clients. The integration of Archer should produce a positive impact across several of our lines of business.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

In addition to augmenting our Asset Servicing capabilities for managed accounts, Archer will provide our investments business, as well as our Wove wealth advisor platform in Pershing, with expanded distribution of model portfolios and access to Archer's multi-custodial network. Buy it once, use it many, if you will.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

The transaction is expected to close before the end of the year, and we look forward to welcoming the Archer team to BNY. Another one of the fastest-growing areas in financial services, alternatives, also presents a promising opportunity for us to deliver new client solutions across One BNY. We already have relationships with hundreds of alternatives managers, as well as roughly $3 trillion of wealth assets on our platforms.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

We believe there is more for us to do to mine the opportunity and build the technology to reach across our franchise and unlock the fast-growing alternatives market for wealth intermediaries, advisors, and the investors they serve. Last month, we introduced Alts Bridge, a comprehensive data, software, and services solution built for wealth advisors.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

Alts Bridge aims to make investing in alternatives easier for advisors through a streamlined end-to-end experience and direct integration into advisors' existing desktops, starting with our Pershing NetX360+ and Wove platforms. As we continue to deliver new innovative products, we are also addressing the significant opportunity from enhancing our commercial model, making it easier for clients to navigate BNY. In order to accomplish this, we are promoting an enterprise approach to client coverage, and we are operationalizing our new commercial model.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

For example, over the summer, and for the first time in recent memory, we brought together several hundred of BNY's client-facing commercial leaders from around the world, as well as members of our executive committee, for a two-day event we called Commercial Liftoff.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

This program enabled our top client coverage people and their business partners to take a one BNY view to account planning, creating a shared vision for serving each of our clients holistically across the entire relationship, generating new ideas to meet the client's objectives, and developing action-oriented plans to deliver on those goals.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

During the quarter, we also made progress toward running our company better, including the ongoing transition to a platform's operating model, enhancing the connectivity across our teams, and empowering our people to drive change across the company.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

In September, we went live with the next step on our multi-year plan to unite related capabilities around BNY and elevate our execution by doing things in one place and doing them well. We now have about 13,000, or about one quarter of our people, working in our new operating model.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

As we've said before, powering our one BNY culture in order to be more for our clients and run our company better, requires not just words, but action. I want to thank our people around the world for their hard work and for collectively pulling together as a team to create the change for our clients, for our shareholders, and for one another.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

To wrap up, the combination of our talented team, our portfolio of leading businesses working together, and the strength of our balance sheet, gives us a great foundation to deliver more to our clients and drive sustainable, long-term shareholder value.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

While our results in Q3 demonstrate continued execution against our strategic priorities, as well as progress toward our medium-term financial targets, our team remains focused on the work ahead. With that, over to you, Dermot.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

Thank you, Robin, and good morning, everyone. Starting on page three of the presentation, I'll begin with our consolidated financial results for the quarter. Total revenue of $4.6 billion was up 5% year-over-year. Fee revenue was up 5%.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

This includes 5% growth in investment services fees, reflecting higher market values and net new business across our security services and market and wealth services segments. Investment Management and performance fees from our Investment and Wealth Management segment were up 2%, driven by higher market values, partially offset by the mix of AUM flows and lower performance fees.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

Firm-wide AUA of $52.1 trillion were up 14% year-over-year, reflecting higher market values, net new business, and client inflows. Assets under management of $2.1 trillion were up 18% year-over-year, primarily reflecting higher market values and the favorable impact of a weaker dollar. Foreign exchange revenue increased by 14%, driven by higher volumes. Investment and other revenue was $196 million in the quarter, reflecting continued strength in fixed income and equity trading.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

The year-over-year increase primarily reflects a strategic equity investment loss recorded in Q3 of last year and improved results from our seed capital investments. Net interest income increased by 3% year-over-year, primarily reflecting improved investment securities portfolio yields and balance sheet growth, partially offset by changes in deposit mix.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

Expenses of $3.1 billion were flat year-over-year on a reported basis, and up 1% excluding notable items. This reflects higher investment and employee merit increases, partially offset by efficiency savings. Provision for credit losses was $23 million in the quarter, primarily reflecting reserve builds related to commercial real estate exposure.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

As Robin mentioned earlier, we reported earnings per share of $1.50, up 22% year-over-year, and excluding notable items, earnings per share were $1.52, up 20% year-over-year. Pre-tax margin was 33%, and return on tangible common equity was 23%. Turning to capital and liquidity on page four. Our Tier 1 leverage ratio for the quarter was 6%.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

Tier 1 capital increased by 4% sequentially, primarily reflecting capital generated through earnings and improvement in accumulated other comprehensive income, partially offset by cash returned to our shareholders through common stock purchases and to dividends. Average assets increased by 1%. Our CET1 ratio at the end of the quarter was 11.9%.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

CET1 capital increased by 5%, and risk-weighted assets increased by 1%. We returned $1.1 billion of capital to our shareholders over the course of Q3. Year to date, we returned 103% of earnings through dividends and buybacks. Moving to liquidity. The consolidated liquidity coverage ratio was 116%, a one percentage point increase sequentially, due to a favorable change in our deposit composition, and the consolidated net stable funding ratio was 132%, unchanged sequentially.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

Next, net interest income and the underlying balance sheet trends on page five. Net interest income of over $1 billion was up 3% year-over-year and up 2% quarter over quarter. The sequential increase was helped by higher sponsor-cleared repo activity, amidst market volatility and increased client demand. Average deposit balances remained flat sequentially. Non-interest-bearing deposits decreased by 2% in the quarter, and interest-bearing deposits were flat.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

Average interest-earning assets were up 4% quarter over quarter. Our investment securities portfolio balances, as well as loan balances, increased by 1%, and cash and reverse repo balances remained flat. Our broader liquidity ecosystem reached an all-time high at the end of the quarter of over $1.5 trillion worth of client cash across deposits, money market funds, securities lending, sponsor-cleared repo, and other short-term investment alternatives.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

Turning to our business segments, starting on page six. Securities Services reported total revenue of $2.2 billion, up 6% year-over-year. Total investment services fees were up 4% year-over-year. In asset servicing, investment services fees grew by 5%, primarily reflecting higher market values. For Q3 in a row, the impact of repricing was de minimis.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

ETF AUCA of $2.7 trillion was up more than 70% year on year, and the number of funds serviced was up 20% year on year. Inflows into ETFs on our platform remained strong this quarter, with growth across all asset classes. As the ETF industry continues to grow, we are dedicated to scaling our best-in-class ETF service offering. For example, we have successfully onboarded several new liquidity providers to our electronic order execution platform to advance digital adoption.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

In Issuer Services, investment services fees were up 1%. Net new business and higher client activity in Corporate Trust was partially offset by lower depositary receipts fees, reflecting corporate actions in the prior year. Against the backdrop of increased issuance activity, we continued to see strength in corporate trust, capitalizing on our investments in people and technology to enhance client service and scalability.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

In this segment, foreign exchange revenue was up 28% year-over-year, reflecting growth from newly onboarded clients, as well as a higher level of client activity. Net interest income for the segment was up 2% year-over-year. Segment expenses of $1.6 billion were down 3% year-over-year, reflecting efficiency savings and lower severance expenses, partially offset by higher investments and employee merit increases.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

Pre-tax income was $642 million, a 38% increase year-over-year, and pre-tax margin was 29%. Next, Markets and Wealth Services on page seven. Markets and Wealth Services reported total revenue of $1.5 billion, up 7% year-over-year. Total investment services fees were up 7% year-over-year. In Pershing, investment services fees were down 1%, reflecting the impact of lost business in the prior year, partially offset by higher market values.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

Net new assets were negative $22 billion for the quarter, reflecting the ongoing deconversion of lost business in the prior year, which is now largely behind us. Excluding the deconversion, we saw approximately 4% annualized net new asset growth in Q3. Wove continues to see strong client demand.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

We signed up 14 additional clients in Q3, and we remain on track for the $30 to 40 million of revenue in 2024 as we guided in January. Wove is helping us attract new clients and deepen relationships with existing ones. For example, Pershing provides custody and clearing solutions for Sanctuary, a large and fast-growing wealth manager servicing the high net worth and ultra high net worth segments.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

Sanctuary will also leverage Wove portfolio solutions, trading and rebalancing, and reporting for teams that custody with Pershing, as well as those that use another custodian. In Clearance and Collateral Management, investment services fees increased by 16%, primarily reflecting higher collateral management fees and higher clearance volumes. Against the backdrop of a growing market and active trading, U.S. securities clearance and settlement volumes have remained strong.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

As you may remember, we created our global clearing platform earlier this year through the realignment of Pershing Institutional Solutions. We're pleased to see the pipeline of this platform continue to build for our full suite of institutional clearing, settlement, execution, and financing solutions in over a hundred markets around the world. In Treasury Services, investment services fees were up 11%, primarily reflecting net new business.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

The business continues to execute well against the growth agenda we presented in January, and we are seeing our investments in modernizing and digitizing our payments platform pay off in the form of growth in our strategic target markets. Net interest income for the segment overall was up 3% year-over-year. Segment expenses of $834 million were up 5% year-over-year, reflecting higher investments and employee merit increases, partially offset by efficiency savings.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

Pre-tax income was up 8% year-over-year at $704 million, representing a 46% pre-tax margin. Turning to investment and wealth management on page eight. Investment and wealth management reported total revenue of $849 million, up 2% year-over-year. In our investment management business, revenue was up 1%, reflecting higher market values and improved CET1 capital results, partially offset by lower performance fees and the mix of AUM flows.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

In wealth management, revenue increased by 6%, reflecting higher market values and net interest income, partially offset by changes in product mix. Segment expenses of $672 million were flat year-over-year, as efficiency savings offset employee merit increases and higher investments.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

Pre-tax income was $176 million, up 7% year-over-year, and pre-tax margin was 21%. As I mentioned earlier, assets under management of $2.1 trillion increased by 18% year-over-year, primarily reflecting higher market values and the favorable impact of the weaker dollar. In Q3, we saw strength in our short-term strategies with $24 billion of net inflows into cash, reflecting our leading position and strong investment performance in our Dreyfus Money Market Funds.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

Long-term active strategies saw $8 billion of net outflows spread across multi-asset, LDI, and active equity, partially offset by net inflows into fixed income. We saw $16 billion of net outflows from index strategies.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

Wealth management client assets of $333 billion increased by 14% year-over-year, reflecting higher market values and cumulative net inflows. Page nine shows the results of the other segment. Before I wrap up, a couple of comments on the outlook for the year. Starting with net interest income. Remember, we began the year setting up for positive operating leverage, despite an expectation for full year net interest income to be down 10% in 2024.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

While we're currently forecasting for Q4 net interest income to be slightly below what we saw in our strong Q3 results, the resilience of our net interest income over the first nine months of the year has positioned us to outperform our outlook for the full year net interest income growth rate from January by approximately five percentage points.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

Regarding expenses, we continue to work hard to keep core expenses, excluding notable items for the full year 2024, roughly flat. We now expect our effective tax rate for the full year 2024 to be at the lower end of the 23% to 24% range we estimated in January.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

Lastly, as we said at the beginning of the year, we expect to return 100% or more of 2024 earnings to our shareholders through dividends and buybacks, and we remain on track, having returned 103% of earnings year to date. In conclusion, our results this past quarter reflect broad-based growth across our three business segments and continued progress on our strategic priorities.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

We're pleased with the company's performance year to date, and we're proud of our people, who continue to execute well toward our medium-term financial targets, while we all remain focused on the work and the tremendous opportunity ahead of us. With that, operator, can you please open the line for Q&A?

[Operator]

If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up question. Please go ahead. We'll take our first question from Brennan Hawken with BMO.

[Brennan Hawken, Analyst at BMO]

Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. You flagged some of the ETF wins that you had on the servicing side. Curious about that. Number one, you know, how much of that was the BlackRock business that you've won, you know, and has the revenue from that win, that big win, fully turned on, and did those dynamics have something.

[Brennan Hawken, Analyst at BMO]

Or like, is the fee rate lower? Because, you know, fees in asset servicing were up about 5%, but AUC 16%, and I know sometimes the ETF fee rates are a little lower, Curious to flesh that out a bit. Thank you.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

Thanks for the question. I don't really want to get into the specifics on one client or transaction, but just to take a step back on ETFs, generally, you know, it is a growing market. You may have watched Larry from BlackRock on CNBC this morning. It is a secular trend. It is a very big and growing market, and we are a key player in that.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

As I said in my prepared remarks, you know, we have 2.7 trillion on the platform. That's up 70% year on year, and the number of funds serviced is up 20%. That's on the back of, you know, strong leadership and a real investment in technology so we can be best in class.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

Without going into specifics, we're there to take advantage of the secular trend, and we'll continue to innovate and solve for our clients' needs.

[Brennan Hawken, Analyst at BMO]

Okay, thanks for that. Maybe if I could word it a little differently. The strong ETF growth that you have seen in this quarter, is the revenue fully reflected this quarter, or is some of those wins still have some revenue ramp to come?

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

I would say it's the latter. It's, you know, generally speaking, strong pipeline. We're always adding new clients to the platform, and they, because of the size of what's been onboarded, they tend to do it in a phased approach. Some revenue is on the platform, some revenue to come.

[Brennan Hawken, Analyst at BMO]

Excellent. Thanks for that, Dermot. Thank you also for the update on NII. Encouraging to see things working better. Could you speak to the deposit beta that you experienced with the first rate cut? Given that we're seeing rates coming down now, is it reasonable to think that deposits could begin to grow from here?

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

The betas, I think we've said on previous calls, we view it as symmetrical. For us, the first rate cut was, you know, 100% passed on, so we feel pretty good about that. I think in terms of where we are in the Fed easing cycle, I think it's probably a little bit too early to see how that's going to feed into the deposit balance story.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

I think overall, we've kind of, we've held in there. We had a strong Q3, for a variety of different reasons. I would say I expect where we are to moderate a little bit on balances in Q4, and, we'll see what happens next with the next Fed meeting. No significant change for us as we kind of sit here, right here today.

[Brennan Hawken, Analyst at BMO]

Great. Thank you for taking my questions.

[Operator]

If you find that your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star two. We'll move to our next question from Mike Mayo with Wells Fargo.

[Mike Mayo, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Hey, how are you doing?

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

Hey, Mike, how are you?

[Mike Mayo, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Good. Look, I'm just... That's a big number, the $50 trillion of AUC. A nice round number. You did beat, you know, it's factual that you beat expectations, for the quarter and the year so far, as you highlighted. I'm just trying to figure out, how much of this is lucky versus just being smart?

[Mike Mayo, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

I imagine it's a bit of both, but the lucky part, you know, is record stock market volatility, trading, some other factors in the market that have gone your way. I don't feel like we have enough information on your client growth, the underlying client growth, the most repeatable part of the company.

[Mike Mayo, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Could you give some color on whether it's growth in clients or maybe it's revenues per client, or maybe it's products per client, or all those adjacent businesses that you talk about, you know, how you're managing the company better versus simply a better environment to operate in?

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

Sure, Mike, it's Robin. I understand the question, and it's obviously a very legit question. You know, we broke through the 50. By the way, we ended at 52, so the good news is we didn't stop at the round number. Look, I'd say that it isn't just fashionable. It's actually old-fashioned, traditional, just the way that we want to do it in terms of being able to have this deliberate growth and this focus.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

We've tried to provide as much visibility as we reasonably can into the inputs of what it is that's ultimately driving this progress. Because we understand we have benefited from a terrific backdrop in terms of markets, and of course, that's part of our business, to be able to be well-positioned to take advantage of those backdrops.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

We've got parts of our business which respond to asset values. We've got parts of our business that respond to the number of accounts. We've got parts of our business that respond to software sales, transaction volumes, and having that multifaceted set of business response functions, if you wanna call it, that is actually a deliberate strategy so that we can participate in the growth of markets.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

If you believe that overall debt issued in the world, equity valuations in the world, financial market activities are gonna grow, we're trying to hitch our wagon to all of those growth trends. We think that's good.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

Having said that, to the heart of your question, this is the work that we've really done in the early days since this management team took over, which was to understand the components that we had and to really start to understand how they could work together, how they could hum together in order to be able to unlock more potential.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

We rallied the firm around three strategic pillars, this thing of being more for our clients, and that's just not, not just words. It's been about maturing this one BNY philosophy that we've talked before about. It's about having a different type of dialogue. It's about the movement over time to solutions as opposed to just products.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

It's like the examples that I gave and Dermot gave in our prepared remarks, where clients are coming to us because we can do more than one thing for them, and it's not just that we're selling more things to them, it's that they actually want to take advantage of bundles of things which actually provide a better solution to their business, and then

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

Our second pillar of running the company better, that's been about sales rhythms and sales targets and bringing our people together and having them understand what it is that we're trying to do, and then wrapping the whole thing is this culture of wanting to have a winning culture, wanting to push forward, wanting to make BNY of the future more than BNY Mellon was of the past.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

Those things are all quite deliberate, and we believe that we're starting to see the results of that, although it's still early in our results. You know, Dermot can give you a couple of additional things on this, which I think also would be helpful.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

Mike, the way I … From just thinking about it from a numbers perspective, right? We're up 5% year on year in fee growth and constructive markets, we've been able to take advantage of constructive markets, but a couple of important points that I would draw out is that in all three of our business segments, we've seen solid underlying growth.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

In Robin's prepared remarks, he talked about the fact that we're evolving into a platform company. When we have platforms that we're investing in at scale, when you have high volume and you have constructive markets, we have the platforms in situ that can take advantage of that. In asset servicing, we're winning and onboarding new business. We came into the year with a backlog.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

We onboarded the business throughout the year, and we're beginning to go into the Q4 with a bigger backlog than we came into the beginning of the year. So asset servicing, I feel very proud of. Corporate trust, depository receipts, corporate trust, specifically, a good margin business, but something that has been devoid of investment over a number of years.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

We've put money to work there in terms of leadership and scaling our technology, and that's going to be a business, an important business for us in the future. Treasury and services and clearance and collateral management have really kind of shown what, when you have a scale platform with high volume, strong markets, lots of issuance, lots of payments, you take advantage of that.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

On to just the client-specific thing, albeit it's a small base, and we've highlighted a couple of transactions this year, where we're able to have a much more sophisticated conversation with clients, and clients are now buying from us across more than one line of business, in some cases, four lines of business. That was something that we just could not do a couple of years ago. Robin's point about bringing the one BNY to bear on clients is really beginning to pay dividends.

[Mike Mayo, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

All right. Well, that was very comprehensive. Just last follow-up. Are you implying - and by the way, on all the metrics, again, the client growth numbers are what... and thanks for peeling back the layers of the onion there, but always like even more layers, never enough for us. You know, in terms of growth in clients and more specifics going down the line, but the expenses, clearly, Dermot, the plat expenses, that's very clear, that part of it. Are you implying even lower expenses in the Q4 based on your new guide today?

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

Look, the thing I would like to convey to you and to our shareholders is that we work really hard over the last couple of years to build credibility, that we are good stewards of our expense base, and we guided flat at the beginning of the year.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

Broadly speaking, you know, there's been some pressure, I would say, on expenses, that for the most part, are revenue related. If revenues are higher, there's some aspects that you just have to pay more expenses. While I've guided roughly flat for the full year, there may be a little bit of pressure over the course of that because of higher revenues.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

Also, you know, as Robin said in his remarks, we've announced the acquisition of Archer, and there'll be some integration costs associated with that. I feel very good the fact that now we have 53,000 people who understand the importance of financial discipline, and that goes to pillar number two of being a really well-run company.

[Brennan Hawken, Analyst at BMO]

All right, thank you.

[Operator]

We'll move to our next question from Brian Bedell with Deutsche Bank.

[Brian Bedell, Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

Oh, great. Thanks. Thanks. Good morning, folks. Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe just on just sticking with the revenue dynamic, the. Talking about the, obviously, the commercial liftoff and the enterprise approach. The early traction that you're getting, I think you referenced some clients now doing multiple services.

[Brian Bedell, Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

Can you talk a little bit more about how you think that might impact the revenue growth trajectory? Also just, if you can, just reconfirm the the general revenue delta to equity markets. I think it was like 10% equity market moves can have an impact of about 1% revenue.

[Brian Bedell, Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

Just wanted to sort of break apart those two dynamics, just really kind of showing that you're actually generating this revenue growth aside from markets.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

If I take the last question first, hopefully that was your two questions in one go. 5% gradual change in equity markets is roughly $60 million in fees annually, and a 5% gradual change in fixed income markets is roughly 40%, or $40 million in fees annually. That's a little bit on the sensitivity analysis.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

On just the commercial lift-off that Robin talked about in his remarks, it really is Cathinka Wahlstrom, who's with us now for over a year, spent the first year really on a listening tour and organizing roughly our 12 to 15 hundred leading client coverage people around the world in terms of what we want our ambition to be, what are the products that we have, and how can we educate our total force to be able to out there with clients, delivering the whole of the firm.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

I think. Also, if you kind of just talk about Archer for a second, I think a couple of years ago, if we were to do that acquisition, you know, one part of the firm would have bought it for its business.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

I think Robin's point in his remarks are really, really important, where you, you buy it once, you use it multiple times, and it's an acquisition that's done for the enterprise that will serve multiple lines of business. That's how you should think about how our client coverage model is going to work in a strategic way going forward.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

We're going to deliver holistic solutions for our clients. Clients have a better understanding of the diversified nature of our business franchise, and they're just buying more from us, and it's just going to show up in revenue. We feel very good about where we are today in terms of planning for the budget season for Q4 and the opportunities that are gonna come our way in 2025.

[Brian Bedell, Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

Great, that's helpful. I'll get back in the queue for another question, actually.

[Operator]

We'll move to our next question from Alexander Blostein with Goldman Sachs.

[Alexander Blostein, Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Thanks. Thanks. Good morning, guys, so maybe just wrapping some of the comments you made around fee in a bigger picture question. When you guys think about a number of different growth areas, you outlined some of the specifics, and obviously, the approach to cross-selling has taken a whole different turn here, so when you zoom out, and you look at the business holistically, how do you think about the organic fee growth that the enterprise can generate over time?

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

We don't guide on fees, haven't done, don't intend to do it here. What I would say is, and I gave this answer as an earlier question, we are seeing underlying growth across all three of our business segments. Our underlying organic growth this year, we feel quite happy about, and we feel it reflects a really good nine months of the year.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

There's no reason to expect that momentum won't continue. I do feel the way we've set up for the back half of this year and into next year, it's a kind of flywheel of innovation, and we have a lot of growth initiatives. We've come together, and we have a group of people who are working on what we call integrated solutions.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

We have a number of interesting things in the pipeline. You know, Robin talked about Alts Bridge in his remarks, talked about Archer in his remarks. There are things that we're doing within specific lines of business coming together. We talked about Pershing being realigned into clearance and collateral management, and that's driving growth as well.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

The decisions that we've taken over the last couple of years in terms of realigning certain activities into different parts of the firm are showing up in our revenues this year, and we will continue to do that into next year.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

Alex, I'd just add, you know, and Dermot really alluded to this in what he just said, but right from the beginning, we've had two approaches. One is to think about this endeavor of fully realizing BNY's potential as a multi-year endeavor, and we recognize that there are going to be different ways in which that will come together in different years.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

North Star, as you know, for us, is operating leverage, and that came about in a slightly different way in 2023 than it did in 2024, and it could be different again in 2025 as we really get into that conversation ultimately, when we talk to you in January. We've simultaneously invested in things that we knew would be important for the shorter term and for the medium term and for the longer term.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

Both Dermot and I have talked about this platform's operating model. That's a great example. There have been some benefits that come early on in that process. We've brought like things together across the company. There have been benefits on the revenue side, there have been benefits on the expense side from doing it. But then the value of having done it creates medium-term momentum because now we're able to be more dynamic for clients.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

We're able to solve problems more quickly for clients, there's a payoff there. And then over the longer term, it actually makes it easier to be able to assemble these new solutions that Dermot was just talking about. Again, there's a revenue story there, but there's also an expense story. And that's how we're thinking about it, notwithstanding, we haven't given you a specific growth target number.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

Make no mistake, we're invested in creating that growth.

[Alexander Blostein, Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

No, fair enough. I appreciate all that. Smaller kind of tactical question for you guys. The repo activity continued to be quite elevated. You mentioned that in your prepared remarks as well. Is it possible to help size how much repo contributed, sort of, across the enterprise? It hits you in a couple of different ways. Obviously, there's the NII benefit, and there's some fee benefits.

[Alexander Blostein, Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

You think about the more normalized level of repo activity, versus what you saw in the quarter, how big of a contributor was that, you know, in kind of totality? As you look forward, given changes in monetary policy expectations, but also some of the client behavior that you mentioned earlier, how sustainable do you ultimately think this more elevated pace of activity in this market?

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

On the repo question, cleared repo, for sure, we saw elevated activity, particularly going into the back end of the quarter and in the early part of this quarter, and that in large part contributed to the outperformance for Q3 NII.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

That has now moderated somewhat. In my prepared remarks, and in terms of the guidance, that's why I kind of feel like, you know, roughly for NII, we're about $1 billion for the Q4. In terms of cleared repo, overall, as a kind of contributor to the NII over the course of the year, it's roughly about 5% of the number.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

As it relates to elevated activity in terms of volume and activity, I think from what we see on our platforms, we kind of see that continuing to be the case. In the medium term, there's no reason for the slowdown. It's been a very strong year, very, very active, client engagement, product innovation, and particularly on the international side.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

We said at the beginning of the year in our kind of strategic call in January, that international was going to be a key area of focus on, on the platform, and that's been the case, and that's shown up in the results. So, I think overall, and I said in my prepared remarks as well, in terms of the liquidity ecosystem, in total, hit a high for us of $1.5 trillion.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

That's up from $1.2 trillion a couple of years ago, and that's in the backdrop of, you know, liquidity coming out of the system. So we've grown quite substantially, and that again is coming back to connecting the dots across the firm, getting teams collaborating more, being more digital, providing innovative solutions to clients, and that is really powering the growth.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

If I could just relate that back to a question that Mike had asked earlier on, because I think these things are relevant. You've got to remember that the strategy of us having roughly the right oars in roughly the right waters, to be able to participate in things that are happening in the world, that's very important.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

So if I just supplement what Dermot said with the additional observation that we're the world's largest securities lender, that generates repo activity. We're the world's largest collateral manager, so we get to capture fees associated with people doing repo. We obviously play this role in the U.S. Treasury market, which participates in the growth of U.S. Treasury repo.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

We have all of these different touch points, there are different ways in which we can collect across software, in some cases, services that we administer in others, and participation in different, both global markets and also product types, which align in indirect ways to that. That's an important part of how we look at the overall system and understand how our products and services can help clients navigate those, and we can participate in the benefit of their growth.

[Alexander Blostein, Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

That's a helpful framework to discuss it this way. Thank you, guys, both.

[Operator]

We'll move to our next question from Gerard Cassidy with RBC.

[Gerard Cassidy, Analyst at RBC]

Hi, Dermot. Hi, Robin.

[Gerard Cassidy, Analyst at RBC]

Robin, can you give us some thoughts with, obviously, you talked a little bit about the acquisition you accomplished in this quarter, what your outlook is for, you know, you're obviously got very strong capital levels. Your stock has moved very nicely this year. You got a better currency. What the outlook is for just other types of acquisitions, if there are some that could be complementary to what you're currently doing?

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

Sure, Gerard. First of all, just make a quick comment about Archer. We're looking forward to closing that transaction in the Q4 and welcoming the team in. This relates a little bit to a couple of other things that we've already talked about on the call.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

You know, one is participation in markets, and the other one earlier on, on ETFs. If you just think about the way that we view the world construct, once upon a time, there were mutual funds. More recently, in the past decade or so, it's really been the explosion of ETFs, and there's a simultaneous thing going on, which is the growth of separately managed accounts.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

In the same way that Dermot described how we've participated in sort of outsized participation of the ETF migration, Archer is a transaction that pre-positions us to be able to participate, hopefully in an outsized way, associated with the transition to separately managed accounts. It relates to that strategic question of growth and participating in different markets that we talked about.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

Now, stepping back to the other part of your question, really the heart of it on M&A. You know, look, our primary focus is what we have and how we can improve on it. Dermot and I both talk a lot about the fact that we've looked very carefully at our businesses, and we love our businesses. We think we have a great set of businesses.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

We think they're great ones to be in, and we think that they have a lot of adjacency to each other, and we think that the spread of those things can provide a lot more services to our clients in more joined up way of solutions than maybe we have before. It isn't that we do M&A from a position in any way of needing to do things. It's we're able to be very opportunistic, and we obviously like that a lot.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

Notwithstanding that we're pleased with what we have, we don't wanna be complacent, so we keep our eyes open, and we look at things. Archer came about as a result of a strategic business review that we did internally, looking at long-term trends, looking at how we might adapt to those trends.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

We went out, and we looked very specifically for a capability that would do that, with the key emphasis being on the word capability. Digestible, bolt-on things that accelerate what we're trying to do or de-risk delivery of what we're trying to do.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

If we can buy a piece of technology that can be more efficient or less distracting than building it ourselves with a great team, great technology, ideally like this one, an installed book of business is also helpful, then we feel very good about it. As long as it aligns with those priorities, it's a good cultural fit, has a good attractive return. That's our M&A thought process, and then it...

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

That fits into the overall waterfall, which we've talked about before, which is if we have excess capital, we're gonna, of course, be prudent, we like excess capital. That's not a bad thing in an uncertain world, that's a very important consideration. Then we look at whether or not we could invest it. Good news, as you know, we're a pretty capital-light model.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

We're very capital generative, so we don't need a ton of capital to reinvest in our business to keep growing it. Then we look at whether or not we need something for some type of additional need, like the Archer example, and then we distribute the rest, and this has been obviously a good year to see all of that on display.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

We've been prudent, we've run at elevated capital levels, and as Dermot's indicated, we intend to return 100% plus of net earnings to shareholders, and we've been able to make an acquisition. This is a pretty good model year for how we think about the world.

[Gerard Cassidy, Analyst at RBC]

Very good. Thank you for the answer. Just as a quick follow-up, Dermot, you gave us that sensitivity analysis about a gradual 5% change in the equity markets and fixed income and the impact it would have on revenue. Was that for up markets, meaning if the gradual increase was five, you know, 5% up? Does that also reflect a down market? If markets were down 5%, that's the kind of impact we would expect to see?

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

That's correct, Gerard. That's correct.

[Gerard Cassidy, Analyst at RBC]

Okay, great. Thank you.

[Operator]

We'll move to our next question from Ebrahim Poonawala with Bank of America.

[Ebrahim Poonawala, Analyst at Bank of America]

Hey, good morning.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

Good morning, Ebrahim.

[Ebrahim Poonawala, Analyst at Bank of America]

I had a follow-up with some of your responses. I think, I guess depending how... Maybe starting with just capital allocation, so heard your response to Gerard's question around M&A and such. Just talk to us how you think about, means, when we think about the valuation of the stock on price to earnings, price to tangible book.

[Ebrahim Poonawala, Analyst at Bank of America]

At the same time, this year has been pretty good market backdrop-wise, and as an investor, shareholder, you care about ROE resiliency of these firms. One, maybe, Robin, Dermot, talk to us about your comfort around ROE resiliency. If the market backdrop is unfavorable, what's the flex in the system? Given where things stand today, like, how do you think about the stock valuation versus the commitment to return 100% plus in buybacks and dividends? Thank you.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

I'll take the second bit first, and then Dermot will reflect on the first part of your question. So you know, the good news is that we can also pay attention to the way that you all think about the stock and your views of our stock.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

You know, we appreciate the fact that many of you have expressed confidence in our forward direction. We believe in ourselves as well. While we do, of course, consider price as one of the many inputs into our capital return framework, we don't view current prices as being problematic in terms of continuing our stock buybacks.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

When I took on the role a couple of years ago, I guess I got a lot of questions about, is this just going to be more the same or what's different? Now we're several quarters into the new team, and Robin has really kind of bolstered that team. Through the strategic pillars, communication, the principles, the medium-term financial targets, has really started to evolve the culture of BNY.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

It is our commitment to deliver to our shareholders positive operating leverage through the cycle. If you just take a step back and look at this quarter's financials, you know, 5% revenue growth, flat expense growth, 33% pre-tax margin, upper end of Tier 1 leverage, 6%, 23% return on tangible common equity, and a 22% EPS growth.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

You know, what I would say is a solid beat, so I don't really think about the valuation of the firm on any given day. We just care about delivering for our clients and our shareholders, and if we do that in a first-class way, the valuation will take care of itself.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

You asked about the returns and our sort of comfort with them. Look, we've given medium-term targets, as Dermot just said, that's sort of greater than or equal to 23% for ROTCE. We obviously appreciate touching that, but doing it consistently over time is how we really view achieving targets.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

In terms of the resiliency, remember the very nature of our business is actually got this diversification. We talked about the equity markets and the fixed income markets. I talked about the fact that it is software, it's services, platforms, and market valuations, and transaction volumes. These are all things that we participate in. Capital markets activity has been important to us in 2024.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

The fact that we participate through our corporate trust business, through our debt capital markets business, those are things that are participating in the growth of capital markets. Generally, we participate in the scale of markets, and things like the treasury market is a good example. This diversification of our mix helps us to be resilient in terms of the vagaries of any one particular market or cycle.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

Now, of course, things will move around, and that's why Dermot mentioned the point about our commitment to positive operating leverage in almost all reasonable scenarios that we can imagine, because we recognize that NII, which is part of our mix, but so too are the fees, and then our ability to control expenses. We could make expenses less than they are now.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

We've chosen to manage them at the level that they are because we believe that investing in that business for future growth is exactly what we should be doing right now, given the environment, but it wouldn't always have to be so.

[Ebrahim Poonawala, Analyst at Bank of America]

Appreciate that, and if I can sneak one quick more follow-up. Dermot, I think you mentioned Q4 NII, slightly lower than Q. We've seen a few rate cuts in Europe, in the US now, in September. Is it fair to assume that absent a dramatic change in rates, this $1 billion in quarterly NII is kind of where we are bouncing around at the bottom, If deposit growth picks up, QT stops, that it should go off that base, or am I missing something?

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

If you look back at our last five quarters, we've kind of toggled between $1 billion and $1.1 billion. Q3 was a stronger quarter for us for a number of reasons, principally volatility in the market at the beginning of August, and clients held more cash.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

Towards the back end of the quarter, once there was a clearer view on where the Fed was going to go at rates, clients started to put money into money market funds, which ended up with us. We kind of benefited from those two principal things. Our deposit balances have kind of leveled off here. We expect maybe NII to grind down a little bit from here.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

As I kind of said, maybe 10 minutes ago, $1 billion for Q4 is the best guidance I can give you today. For 2025, I don't see NII being a kind of headwind for us, and we've taken extensive action over the last several weeks in terms of repositioning our CIO book to insulate 2025.

[Ebrahim Poonawala, Analyst at Bank of America]

That's helpful. Thank you so much.

[Operator]

As a reminder, if you find that your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star two. If you would like to join the queue, you may press star one. We'll move to our next question from Betsy Graseck with Morgan Stanley.

[Betsy Graseck, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Hi, good afternoon.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

Hey, Betsy.

[Betsy Graseck, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Okay, two quick questions. One is on the buyback question, and I know you said, you know, look, you're very accretive, earnings accretion. You don't need a lot of capital for the business model, of course, as we know, and you're above your targets, CET1 of eleven and Tier One leverage, you know, target five and a half to six. You're at the high end of that range.

[Betsy Graseck, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

When we think about the 100% plus, how should we think about the plus part of the 100% plus? Because it feels like, you know, totally a 100% makes sense, There's room to bring these, you know, to optimize the capital structure more.

[Betsy Graseck, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

You know, I'm wondering, what kind of timeframe are we talking about to optimize your capital structure, do you feel?

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

Thanks for the question, Betsy. Last year, we returned a little north of 120%. This year, in January, we guided 100% or more. Given the uncertainty in the markets, geopolitical, the U.S. presidential elections, wide range of uncertainty with Fed, you know, in January, we thought the year was going to be very different to where it's ended up.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

I think on previous calls, we said we wanted, for now, stick towards the upper end of our Tier 1 Leverage Ratio, which is the 6% range. When you take that and the Archer transaction, we kind of think, you know, we're still on track to do the 100% or more.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

Through three quarters, we're at 103%, I wouldn't expect that to materially change from here.

[Betsy Graseck, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Okay, got it. The other question is, you mentioned one third of BNY is now on the platform model. Are you taking 100% of the firm there? And just wondering about implications for, you know, the, a runway for efficiency improvements as you execute on that. Thanks.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

A quarter of the firm, roughly 13,000 employees, are on the platform now. It happened in two waves, March and September, with another wave going live in Q1 of next year. I wouldn't necessarily think about platform operating model as a mechanism just for efficiency. It really is.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

It's going to drive top line growth, and it's going to run the company better, and it's going to help us have a different culture in terms of more joined up thinking. It really is the mechanism by which we deliver the three strategic pillars. The answer to the question about 100% is yes, and from here, it's probably another 18 months before the firm is fully up there.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

By the end of Q1 of next year, we expect about half the firm will be live on the model. The feedback so far from our team around the world is extraordinarily positive. It's really worked well for us as a firm.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

Betsy, you remember the tail of benefit extends way past the eighteen-month point, because sometimes it's not until folks are in the model and operating in that new approach, that they're really able to examine some of the core questions that that platform is confronted with in terms of how to optimize. We expect the benefit that Dermot was describing to be a multi-year endeavor past that eighteen-month point.

[Betsy Graseck, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Got it. All right. Thanks so much. Appreciate it.

[Operator]

We'll move to our next question from Glenn Schorr with Evercore ISI.

[Glenn Schorr, Analyst at Evercore ISI]

Hello. Just one wrap up for me. Dermot, I love that you pointed out the 5% revenue growth, flattish expenses lead to 20% earnings growth. That is the power of the BK model. If you look just... I know it's just one quarter, but if you look at the sequential numbers, the story changed a little bit with everything about flatten earnings down a little bit.

[Glenn Schorr, Analyst at Evercore ISI]

I'm just-- all I'm asking is, does that inform us in any way of how we're looking at, as we roll into 2025? A lot of your business metrics and balance and client wins are up, so my gut is no, but I just want to see from that perspective, how you feel about that.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

I think your gut's correct. It is no, Glenn, and it's all just about timing and when we onboard clients and put people on the platform and when the revenue starts to get recognized. Just in terms of the backlog across all our businesses, strong, pipeline continues to grow, your intuition is correct.

[Glenn Schorr, Analyst at Evercore ISI]

All right. Awesome. Thank you.

[Operator]

We'll move to our next question from Rajiv Bhatia with Morningstar.

[Rajiv Bhatia, Analyst at Morningstar]

Just a quick one for me. I guess, on the depository receipts business, I appreciate it's a small business, but the number of sponsored programs continues to decline. Is that something we should continue to expect to decline in? Is it competitive takeaways or something else that's driving that? Thanks.

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

I wouldn't really read too much into that. That's, you know, we've talked about that for several years about the sponsor program going away and not being around. It's still here. Depository receipts is a small business in the totality of it, but it is a very, very important business for us because it gives us another opportunity to connect with clients,

[Dermot McDonogh, CFO at BNY Mellon]

It has got a very good margin to it, and we have, like, very significant market share in that business, It's something that we continue to invest in. We think it's very important for our franchise, and we don't see a secular decline in that business from where we see it today.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

We also off-boarded some of the smaller clients in that particular business, so that the headline of total number is a little bit misleading, actually, when, if you were able to dig under the hood and see some of the clients that made up that decline, you'd see that they disproportionately skewed to the small.

[Rajiv Bhatia, Analyst at Morningstar]

Got it. Thank you.

[Operator]

We'll move to our next question from Jim Mitchell with Seaport Global Securities.

[Jim Mitchell, Analyst at Seaport Global]

My questions have all been asked and answered. Thanks.

[Operator]

As a reminder, if you find that your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star two. We'll move to our next question from Brian Bedell with Deutsche Bank.

[Brian Bedell, Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

Great. Thanks for taking my follow-up. Just one more on the margins. You're mostly at your 33% target in most areas. As you generate more savings from, you know, moving to the platform model, and as we move into, say, next year or beyond, I guess, what's the view on spending some of that in investing in the business versus actually generating, you know, potentially generating margins, you know, well above 33%?

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

My answer to that one, Jim, would be, we want to, we want to demonstrate to you that we can prove that we can deliver 33% margins through the cycle. We gave guidance for the first time in January, and then we just managed to get there pretty quickly, but we want to stay there and show that we can deliver that over a period of time.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

We're heading into a very what's going to be quite an interesting budget season for us because we've done a lot of great things this year, and I know the various teams around the firm want to do great things next year. And to offset that balance, we want to be able to deliver positive operating leverage.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

The next eight weeks on how we set up the firm for next year will inform how we communicate with you in, in January. But we set out those targets because we believed we could hit them. The positive is we, we got the. We got there earlier than we thought, and now we want to show that we can improve and maintain those margins that we've guided to previously.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

Brian, the best, the best clue I could give you in terms of how we think about that in sort of a little bit more, more detail, is if you actually look at us on a segment-by-segment basis, you can see us prosecuting the operating leverage journey differently in our three segments. And we told you a year or so ago that that's what we were going to do.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

Maybe to allay your concerns in terms of growth and investment, if you look at Market and Wealth Services, we aren't trying to grow the margin there. We're very happy with the margin. We just want to grow the total size of the business, which is exactly what we've been doing. There are the other segments where we've said we actually do want to grow the margin towards our medium-term targets for those segments. There, we are really growing the margin. You can see exactly your question at work in our segments.

[Brian Bedell, Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

Yhat's, that's great color. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

For our final question, we'll return to the line of Mike Mayo with Wells Fargo.

[Mike Mayo, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Hi. With all this talk of the transitioning of the employees, I guess half the employees to the new platform over the next one to two years, how much do you see AI playing a role, and can you give any metrics? I mean, keeping expenses flat, I don't know how much you're still investing in AI. When Emily presented at the Boston Bank Conference last November, it seemed like BNY was all in for AI. I

[Mike Mayo, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

t was one of the most bullish cases made, yet you've heard out, you know, in the broader world, sometimes you have hits, sometimes you have misses. Hhow does AI relate to the whole platform strategy, and how committed are you to AI? Do you have any numbers that you can give us, some concrete metrics? Thanks.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

Sure, just to reiterate, we've got a quarter of our people in the platforms operating model, and, you know, as Dermot said, it's sort of an eighteen-month trajectory from here. That's really, Mike, the way I think about platforms operating model is this concept of if you take it that we are, in fact, more and more a platforms company in terms of these large at-scale capabilities, often software and services that we deliver, generally in market-leading positions, number one, in a variety of different markets.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

We've talked about things, the businesses before, I won't repeat them. it follows to us from that, that it makes sense for us to operate ourselves in a platforms operating model, which is the way that many other platform companies in the world operate themselves.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

That is a strategy around how we organize ourselves, being pursuant to our broader strategy. Now, AI as a, which is, of course, part of that, we have an AI hub. We have a couple of hundred people in that AI hub, and we are absolutely investing in AI and do believe in the power of AI to be able to help our business in terms of both revenue opportunities over time for clients and also ways to make our people more effective and efficient.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

We haven't made a lot of noise about it, but don't misunderstand that for a lack of interest or investment, because we haven't slowed down. In fact, we've increased our AI investment.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

Of course, notwithstanding all of that, you can see that from running the company well on an expense line, we're not allowing that enthusiasm to distract us from the important task of expense management.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

This is where, I don't mean to be pithy, but it's very, very important learning for us, is that we, as a company, can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can invest in things that matter, and we can manage the company well. We make choices, and AI is a choice of something we're leaning into, and we think that's important for the future.

[Mike Mayo, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Thank you.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

Thank you.

[Operator]

And with that, that does conclude our question and answer session for today. I would now like to turn the call back over to Robin for any additional or closing remarks.

[Robin Vince, CEO at BNY Mellon]

Thank you, operator, and thanks, everyone, for your time today. We appreciate your interest in BNY. Please reach out to Marius and the IR team if you have any follow-up questions. Be well.

[Operator]

Thank you. This does conclude today's conference and webcast. A replay of this conference call and webcast will be available on the BNY investor relations website at 2:00 P.M. Eastern Standard Time today. Have a great day.

Participants

Executives

• Dermot McDonogh, CFO
• Marius Merz, Head of Investor Relations
• Robin Vince, CEO

Analysts

• Ebrahim Poonawala, Analyst at Bank of America
• Mike Mayo, Analyst at Wells Fargo
• Brian Bedell, Analyst at Deutsche Bank
• Betsy Graseck, Analyst at Morgan Stanley
• Brennan Hawken, Analyst at BMO
• Alexander Blostein, Analyst at Goldman Sachs
• Gerard Cassidy, Analyst at RBC
• Glenn Schorr, Analyst at Evercore ISI
• Jim Mitchell, Analyst at Seaport Global
• Rajiv Bhatia, Analyst at Morningstar