Executive Vice President • Asset Servicing • BNY Mellon Asset Servicing •
After nearly three decades in the business, Vince Sands says scarcely anything is the same. “I’ve been here in this space for 27 years, and a great deal has changed, no matter if you’re serving mutual funds or pension funds. Of course, during that period just about everything has changed, whether it’s the products we use or the global nature of the business,” he says. Sands remembers when board presentations were due 3 weeks after the quarter’s end. Today, most of that information has to be delivered daily. “The acceleration of clients demanding information has changed every aspect of our job. It’s a cascading effect,” he says.
Sands comes from the Mellon side of BNY Mellon, serving as head of Mellon’s US-based global securities services division before the merger with The Bank of New York two years ago. Sands is currently executive vice president of BNY Mellon Asset Servicing, responsible for employee benefits, foundations/endowments, mutual funds, insurance, exchange-traded funds, healthcare, religious organizations, Taft-Hartley funds and investment managers in the US and Latin America with 2,400 clients and a staff of 1,200.
All the turmoil in the market means that all firms are taking a second look at their strategies as the marketplace and client demands are in flux. “Every constituent is taking a close look at their model and asking the question, ‘Does it need to change?'” Sands says. “We believe that this period of time is an opportunity for us. It will allow us to take advantage of the changing needs of our clients.”
But even with the upheaval, there are still three certainties, Sands says. The first is that clients are going to look to the industry to provide more and better risk products because of technology and the information need. The second is that the marketplace is “going to look to us to add value,” he says. The much-talked about way to do that is outsourcing, but Sands says that’s not the whole picture. It is also providing information to clients to get focus on their needs in new ways. Thirdly, clients are looking for “trusted partners” who have the “right values,” he says.