[ G C L E G E N D | R O M A N R E G E L M A N ]
I saw an article you co-authored back in 2017 – when you worked at BCG – titled ‘ Why aren ’ t banks getting more out of digital ?’. How did you take your experience from outside of a banking institution and apply it within BNY Mellon ? We often think of consultants as telling people ‘ how to do it ’ and ‘ what to do ’, but you actually observe a lot of things about ‘ what not to do ’. Of course , you ’ re not going to advertise that , but I observed people setting up outposts in Silicon Valley and thinking that it could allow them to be a digital bank . I observed clients creating a spin-out and thinking they would have a parallel bank that would be digital and eventually absorb the bank they had . I talk about three models – the start-up outfit somewhere to the side , the parallel bank model , and digitising this very bank model – and I tell you , from observation , the only model that works is to digitise what we already have . One process , one product , one mindset . It ’ s not a trade-off between the new digital capabilities and new digital offerings , you want to build them all at once . I ’ ve learnt that you cannot have digital products but analogue relationships , you have to talk about digital to clients . More importantly , I learnt innovation is necessary , but it needs to sit on a platform that is trusted and robust . So , I was fortunate to see it all . Some of my clients were more successful than others , but that ’ s always the case . I came to BNY Mellon with a very clear vision that we have to digitise this very bank , and that ’ s what we ’ ve been doing for the last four years , I ’ ve had amazing support from across the company from Todd and now Robin . It ’ s rewarding to do what you preach .
You told me last year you had made 36 FinTech investments – where is that number now ? – and how has this model of partnership changed BNY Mellon as an asset servicer ? It ’ s over 50 now . But it ’ s not about the number , because any large institutions can make investments in one week . It ’ s a point about quality , and quality exists on many levels . It needs to be a quality company – which should go without saying – and you have to have a strong use case , because we are a strategic investor , we ’ re not a financial investor . The last point is the easiest to describe
Legend
ROMAN REGELMAN
Consultant turned securities services legend , Roman Regelman has become synonymous with innovation in the custody industry , spearheading multiple initiatives at BNY Mellon and rising through the ranks to the new role of CEO of securities services and digital . Here he discusses his background , approach to innovation and why he hopes the chief digital officer won ’ t be a role in the future .
and harvest to achieve . You really want to have a culture that allows that fintech to thrive and yet maintain this platform of trust . Because the best-case scenario is when a fintech has amazing capabilities which we can use for ourselves , or for our client , or both . We take their innovation , put it together and the client gets a solution . But I ’ ve seen people just invest because they want to have some kind of headline , and I ’ ve seen people invest when they don ’ t have a culture of doing something like that . I ’ m actually very proud of the results . We ’ re embedding 90-plus percent of fintechs that made it into our openings . We talk a lot about digital assets , as you know , and there are four or five fintechs that are playing a key role in our digital assets offering . Yes , we could build stuff ourselves , but they ’ ve done it and they ’ ve done it well . They passed our risk process , controls and governance and now it ’ s really 1 + 1 = 3 and we give them something very important which a purely financial investor cannot – we give them the understanding of how stuff really works , how decisions are made and how clients buy stuff .
What are you excited for about the industry in the future ? I think the role of digital and digital assets . It ’ s now become part and parcel of the industry . It ’ s not a thing on the side , which it has been for a long time . We have institutional investor clients , we have regulators with many questions in order to get comfortable , we have a market that is global , and in many ways , that magnifies focus on the risk and it needs trusted institutions like us . Then all sorts of stakeholders , clients , employers are looking for digital solutions . Even in a B2B industry , at the end of the day , it ’ s a person who makes the decision ,
24 Global Custodian Fall 2022