BNY Mellon has been selected by Jersey’s largest and oldest health insurer, Horizon Healthcare Services, to provide custody and accounting services.
The deal will see the custodian become the sole provider of global custody services, accounting and reporting, benefit disbursements, performance measurement, and analytics, supporting the insurer from its New York and Pittsburgh offices.
Horizon cited BNY Mellon’s strong focus on client support, ability to handle complex asset classes across a variety of asset pools, and its commitment to technology resources as its reasons for selecting the custodian.
“Besides being a proven leader in global asset servicing, BNY Mellon was selected due to its focus on client service and its continued investment in asset servicing technology,” said Frank Melaccio, Horizon’s vice president and treasurer.
“We are thrilled to have been selected by Horizon,” said Emily Portney, BNY Mellon’s Head of Asset Servicing for the Americas. “Their selection validates our continued commitment to innovative technology, investment in our client relationships, and our global custody offering.”
The announcement of the deal follows the release of BNY Mellon’s first quarter results where it saw a drop in asset servicing fees in the first quarter of the year, bringing down the bank’s total investment services revenues by 5% year-on-year to just under $3 billion.
Revenue from asset servicing, its largest business, was down 7% in comparison to the first quarter of last year at $1.4 billion. BNY Mellon put the decline down to lower foreign exchange and net interest revenue due to lower deposits and subdued client activity. It also said an unfavourable impact from a stronger US dollar further contributed to the decline year-on-year.
Global Custodian has reported on three major BNY Mellon client moves this year including being re-contracted by the Employees’ Retirement System of the State of Hawaii (Hawaii ERS) to provide global custody and associated services and a fund administration deal with SkyBridge Capital, the $9.2 billion hedge fund.
Elsewhere, the custodian announced plans to establish a new office in Jeonju, a southern Korean city home to the world’s third largest pension fund, the National Pension Service (NPS).