The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (BK) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Next up, we have BNY, which we've talked about BNY as being one of the best run banks in our 40-plus bank coverage universe. And I think under the leadership of Robin Vince and Dermot McDonogh, CFO, who's joining us today, thank you so much for taking the time. I think you all have done a phenomenal job in terms of just the execution of the consistency with which you've delivered over the last few years. And I think investors have very much appreciated that. And you see that in how the stock has performed. You just updated your strategic targets last month. So maybe, Dermot, just to kick it off, what's the secret sauce?

So first of all, thanks for having me. I could spend 40 minutes on that question alone. So I'll try to be brief. I think that there are a lot of elements to the secret sauce. But if you kind of go back 3 years and where we were at 3 years ago, the first most important thing was the Board hired Robin. And why did they hire Robin? They hired him because he had all the requisite skills to be the CEO of BNY in terms of his upbringing in his former life, running operations, running global markets, international assignments, Treasurer, risk. So he really had the composite skill set to be the CEO of BNY, and also incredible familiarity with the product set of BNY from the GFC. That's point number one. Point number two was BNY has a very rich history, a very deep culture. And as Rob -- and the most important thing, I think that we did in the first year was write that shareholder letter that did the reflection of the prior decade as to why BNY was where it was at the end of '22, early '23. So reflection, re-underwriting of the business, as Robin said many times, a firm that had great bones but underperformed its potential. The assets were there. They just weren't optimized. And then I think really creating the framework about reestablishing credibility with the marketplace around guidance, control over expenses, desiloing the firm, being more for clients, which is Robin articulated in late '23, early '24, the 3 strategic pillars. So creating the framework that 50,000 people around the world could wrap itself around and talk to each other. So clarity on the message, the intent and then deliberate execution. And so in some ways, the secret sauce is not that magic. It's creating the right framework, having the right leadership and then executing diligently every single day. And so I think BNY's culture has allowed that to happen and has allowed it to thrive -- and personally, I have 5 or 6 people at the firm who have been there 25, 30 years. And I go to them very frequently and I ask, how are we doing? Are you happy? Are we changing? What's the feedback? Because BNY is made up of many different skills and histories and different cultures and people from different places. And so I think the firm has really wrapped itself around the strategy and is executing to a very high degree, and that you see it in the results.

We do. We do. And I think as part of your update last month, I think you laid out, I think, a 10-year walk, you called the last 3 years as the Phase 1, we're entering the Phase II. If you don't mind spending a few minutes around what did we accomplish in Phase 1 in terms of the starting point back in '22, '23 to where we are today. So...

So if you take the 3 strategic pillars, be more for clients, run our company better, power our culture, it's kind of -- it's consultancy 101 in many ways. But underneath that and then the 5 behaviors that we want all our people to exhibit in execution of those 3 pillars, it's pretty straightforward, but the clarity of the communication and the frequency of the communication and exhibiting the examples of where good things are happening has been communication over the last 3 years at BNY has transformed in terms of sophistication and the clarity and the delivery. Reestablishing financial discipline in the firm in terms of getting value for our money in terms of how we spend it externally has been a critical factor in our success, giving confidence back to our employees and giving them belief in terms of we can do this has been a fundamental thing. And so over the course of like if you just take expenses alone, 8%, '22%, 2.7%, flat, 1%, 3%, 3% to 4% this year. You know what I mean, it's kind of -- I think you believe like we've got our stuff together on that side. If you take NII, there's that famous page in our earnings release from Jan 13, where we kind of showed the commercial model. We showed reducing the kind of volatility around NII. So for the last 3 years, we've really invested heavily in risk management in terms of how we think about the asset side, how we think about deposits and all that kind of ecosystem that gives us a lot of confidence around how we're managing NII. And BNY as a stock you're not -- when you think NII is going to be good, it's not buy BNY anymore and sell it when you think rates are going down. So I think we've reeducated everybody that it's not an NII play. It can be, but it's not only. And then you take fees and organic growth, which folks like you and your peers kind of drill us on, you kind of go '22, '23, '24 on that deck. Last year it was 3.2%. We hope to improve it again this year. It was flat in '22. 10% of sales last year were new logos, 64% increase in clients who bought 3 or more products from us over the last 3 years, like they are the metrics that we're showing you to show that it's working. And the two strategic programs that are underpinning all of that. One is the commercial model and two, the platform operating model. And it's just steady execution on both of those pillars over the last 3 years have helped us to kind of accelerate that transformation.

So maybe if you can just spend time on that in terms of the platform operating model. Talk to us in terms of what does it entail? I think about 80% of your headcount was on that model at the end of the year. In terms of what can you do as a result of that, that was harder to do in the prior version of how the bank operated.

Okay. So I received a feedback from an analyst a couple of weeks ago and said, you need to do a better job, Dermot, of truly explaining what platform operating model is to external. So at its core is Robin has a vision for the firm, and you need mechanisms by which to execute the vision. You need to get the firm behind you. You need to get 50,000 people thinking in the same way. It can't be 20 people willing it to happen over time because one person can't do that on its own. So platform operating model, in a way, it's re-architecting how we show up, how we work, how we organize ourselves. And so the example that I talk about a lot is payments. 4 years ago, we had 5 or 6 different businesses who executed payments in their own silo. They had their own tech stack. They did it their own way. They had their own policies, their own procedures. And so if you were dealing with different parts of BNY, you were going through different tech stacks to do payments. Now it's one platform. It's got one EPO, executive platform owner. Her name is Isabel Schmidt, and she is responsible for all payments that flow through the pipes of BNY. She sets the policies, she sets the tech stack, she sets the standards. Now you could say, okay, easy job done. Absolutely not because tech stacks are quite monolithic. They're hard to change, and they interact in different ways with different parts of the firm. So Isabel's work this year is something called Project ATLAS, which is harmonizing all that. And so talking to the rest of the firm through APIs and modernizing the tech stack. So -- in many ways, it's a bit misleading when we say 80% of the people are in the model, which is true, and we plan to move the next 20% this year. But I firmly believe, and I had this conversation with Robin last week, by the end of this year, I actually think we're only getting started on the platform operating model. We've realized efficiencies. We have executed much better than we were 3 years ago. It's helping us de-silo the firm, which helps the commercial model in terms of cross-selling, and we can talk about that. But when you have everybody in the same way and you're beginning to modernize the tech stack and we can talk about AI and using AI to do that, then I feel like there's a lot more runway to come in future years with the platform operating model. So in some ways, I think it's the end of the beginning at the end of this year.

End of the beginning. Okay. And so maybe let's talk about that. So in my mind, there was like the desiloing at the back end and then the cross-sell at the front end. Where would you say on a scale to 0 to 10, where we are in terms of the -- taking care of the dessiloing? And then where are we on the cross-selling part of it?

Okay. So the best way to do this is with stories, I think. So before the holidays, we were pitching for a piece of business, okay? And the business came into a platform. And the BPO, the leader looked at it and said, I don't think we can do that. So kind of said we pass on it. We don't have that skills. And so it bubbled up. And no, we can do this because we need -- we've got that platform over here. We've got that platform. All we have to do is stitch the pieces together and then bring in a partner and then we can do the whole thing. And so we kind of refused to lose. And so we went at it again, a few weekends of working, and we stitched together a great proposal. Now I don't know whether we win that piece of business. But 5 years ago, it would never have seen the light of day. Now we're in it to win it. And we've put a really competitive -- so that -- so the people can see across platforms, whereas before they couldn't see. Now they know what different parts of the firm are doing, they couldn't do it, and they know who to call. We hired a very senior person a few months ago. He said, Dermot, the best thing about the platform operating model is, I know what each platform is. I know what they do, and I know who their leader is. So I can navigate the firm much more quickly than I would have been without the model. So the platform culturally makes the firm feel much smaller. So for people who are coming in from the outside, navigation has become a much easier way to do it.

And how many platforms are there?

So at the moment, I think we have roughly 18. And so we split them into 2. We have enterprise platforms who provide services to the firm. So payments will be an enterprise platform. Client onboarding would be an enterprise platform, parts of custody would be an enterprise platform. And then you have client platforms who are dealing with specific segments. So we kind of -- we split them into 2.

Got it. I guess the one question I meant to ask, as you went through this journey over the last 3 years, did that require a lot of churn in terms of the personnel you had the bank? Because I'm assuming big transformation, big cultural change, -- were there some folks who've been with BNY for a long time who probably didn't want to sign up for the new version of it?

So yes, so the way I kind of think about it, if I look at there are many layers to that question. If you take the Executive Committee, right, we have elevated people to the EC, Executive Committee. We have moved EC members from one area of responsibility to another. So that kind of creating mobility internally. We've hired people where we feel like we have a gap in the talent and we need to bring in fresh thinking. So we've hired into the EC. And some people have said, I'm opting out. I don't want to be part of that journey, and that's okay, too. And so if you look at the Executive Committee today, versus 3 years ago, it's quite different in terms of its composition and its trust with each other. And I don't have to be in every meeting because I trust my colleagues to do it. And I think Robin made a very -- with the benefit of hindsight, it was a good decision at the time with the benefit of hindsight, it was a brilliant decision. We all have coaches. And Robin said there's nothing wrong with you guys. I'm not coaching you to be better. But if you're a cricket player and you're #1 in the world, like you're a man in India, he has a coach. So we don't have coaches to want to be better. And then we coach as a team. So we have the individual and the collective and that's culturally has made a big transformation in terms of how the EC shows up as a leadership group. And then Robin has done another good job in terms of a broader leadership group. So the next cohort of managing directors, so we can create succession, we can create mobility because you need to bring everybody along at the same time with the message. So leadership is all part of the cultural transformation of the firm. And I think we've made good progress in that. Always more to do, but pleased with where we're at, at the moment.

That was good. That was helpful. I guess maybe the one thing you mentioned around risk management and balance sheet management, right? I think that's been a hallmark over the last few years, the consistency of managing the balance sheet through a volatile interest rate backdrop. Just talk to us in terms of the measures you've taken to sort of get to this point. And as we think about the balance sheet and net interest income going forward, is there a cadence to it? Like is it still super sensitive to what happened with the Fed around rate cuts, the yield curve? Like how should investors think about it?

So it's quite interesting. I was just looking at it last night. You kind of -- if you list out all the things that have happened over the last 6 weeks, when we all came back after the break, I think if you were going to write out the 10 things that were going to happen in the first 6 weeks of the year, what's happened wouldn't have been in the top 10, no. But the rate curve has kind of been rock solid. And so we analyze it. We look at it every day. When the administration came out and said, as part of its mandate on affordability that they want one of the GSAs to start buying mortgages, like we were on that straight away. You know -- like we're in it, and we're very quick to react. And so I think we -- I feel very good about the team and the dynamic approach, which they take to managing the asset side of the balance sheet. And really, in the Jan 13 call, we really talked about deposits, we kind of feel will be relatively flat this year. And what gives us confidence around our NII guide for this year is what we're doing on the asset side of the balance sheet.

Got it. And just on the deposit side, flat for this year. As we think about for longer-term folks from a medium-term standpoint, is there a way to think about what deposit growth should look like? Should it mirror fee income growth? What would you point to?

So I always look to -- when I think about deposits, I look to the broader franchise because we're not in the retail arena. It's institutional deposits that are operational in nature, so therefore, sticky. And 2/3 of our deposit base are operational. So clients who are doing business with us in other products leave cash with us to service those needs and requests. And so as the broader franchise grows and ecosystem, which we feel quite confident about, there could be on balance that the mix will change if there's more treasury issuance, if corporate trust grows, if there's more M&A activity and we're building out our escrow product, you could see NIBs being a little bit higher depending on the environment. So like really NIBs in terms of how we think about NII is a very important factor. So I would say, given where the rates are now, we're probably in a sweet spot for kind of the overall size of the book.

And when you think about the NII outlook, what would be the biggest risk to that, like much more steeper rate cuts, a flatter yield curve, like...

COVID too wouldn't be great, yes. So rates down a lot wouldn't be great. But there's -- like, again, I feel for '26, I feel pretty good about the backdrop and the setup and how we've kind of positioned the portfolio for that. Once you get to '27, '28 it becomes a little bit more opaque and uncertain.

Just talking about policy, I'm not sure if you -- the Fed Chair nominee has a view around shrinking the Fed balance sheet, maybe moving some of those assets to -- on the private sector side. Like do you think it would influence sort of impact your business in any way, either on balance sheet or from an off-balance sheet perspective?

I don't really think so. On that, I asked somebody last week about their view on the appointment. And he's a good appointment. He's a very credible person. I think he'll do great stuff. He needs to get into the seat. He needs to have his first 100 days. He needs to go on his listening tour, establish the relationship with treasury. And so let's wait and see what he does.

Got it. I guess moving to -- on the fee growth side, I think we've constantly asked this question in terms of as we think about ex markets as the core growth profile of BNY. Just talk to us when you think about 2026 and maybe beyond, what are the 2 or 3 sort of drivers of fee growth that could sort of lead to a much better-than-expected year versus the downside risk?

So I have to give you a government health warning here in terms of as my tenure at BNY has progressed, I've become more optimistic about the outlook. And as I keep saying to Robin, I've predicted 5 out of the last 2 recessions. And so I think we're in a very -- I think BNY is in a very good place at the moment in terms of what we feel is within our wheelhouse for success. And so as it relates to fees, I think the continuation of unlocking and desiloing and cross-selling, we haven't really scratched the surface yet with integrated solutions and how we stitch different parts of the firm together to serve clients in a differentiated way. We hired Carolyn Weinberg last year as our Head of Digital Assets and also our product strategy. And so in the same way that we talk about the commercial model and the success of Cathinka over the last 3 years, I feel very optimistic about what Carolyn is going to do as it relates to product strategy over the next 3 years. And if you kind of take a step back and you kind of go excellent sales, excellent commercial model, excellent product strategy, excellent products for clients and then operational excellence, which I think we've done a decent job of demonstrating, but we have more runway to go. You take those 3 elements together and you optimize for it and then you layer on AI on top of that, I feel the fact that we have been around for 241 years, we're constantly looking to innovate and disrupt ourselves in this ever-changing world. And we have a core client base that wants to do more business with us, as is seen by the metrics that we showed on Jan 13. One has to be optimistic about the future of BNY. So I'm fundamentally behind it.

Noted. You mentioned AI. Just talk to us, I mean, I think given you've done a phenomenal job in terms of managing expenses, driving positive operating leverage. I think the question that often comes through is, is there enough on the expense side to extract more savings to fund investments? Or are you going to run out of the runway to get more positive operating leverage? Like how ex AI with AI, like just how do you think about future expense saving opportunities?

So just to demonstrate the fact that I do read your e-mails every Sunday, you said some of that last July when the rumor was in going out around acquisitions and you kind of made the point, "I like BNY, but have they run out of steam? Let's hope not." And then we showed up on our earnings call in July, and you kind of came out and said, okay, I guess they haven't run out of steam. So we fundamentally believe we've got lots of runway, and we have lots of ambition. And I think we have the clarity and the intent about how to go after that. So the runway thing running out of steam, absolutely off the table in terms of how I think about it. As it relates to efficiency and AI, internally, we don't talk about efficiency and AI in the same sentence. We talk about creating capacity. And so I will give you a couple of examples just through stories to illustrate it. One is I had a demo on a product that we launched in '23 a couple of weeks ago. Funding products, really good stuff, great client uptake. In the scheme of a $20 billion revenue company, it's not a move the needle product, but it's nice. And you get like these small amounts, it adds up to a big number. So I sat with the team, the product person, the engineer and the salesperson half an hour, it was like, wow, wow, yes, all using Windsurf. The original budget was 8 engineers. Now they're using 4 because they can go at the same pace with 4, where previously budgeted for 8. So now we can put the 4 on to another project. So that's about creating capacity rather than efficiency because now we can go faster with our ambition as opposed to harvest efficiency and hand it back. So there is a little bit of -- when you take a step back at the firm, like how much do you want to harvest as efficiency and how much do you want to kind of go faster as a firm in terms of your ambition. So I think there are 2 lenses that you have to look at there. And so we think AI as an enabler and how do we get to go faster and create things that will delight customers. And so we had our Board in New York Monday and Tuesday of this week, another great story. It's been in the press, not about us, but about somebody else in terms of client onboarding, et cetera, et cetera. And I read that article and it made me very happy because we were already in that space. So I felt like -- we're a bit ahead of the curve on that one. And all entrepreneurial spirit inside the firm, figuring out how to go faster and using AI. And as I said to you before we came on stage, in the world of disruption in AI, everybody assumes that the incumbents are doing nothing. And the compliment I would give Robin is he's a very technologically sophisticated CEO. You know that. Anybody who interacts with him know that. And we've been on this journey for 3 years. We didn't wake up on Jan 1 of 2026 and said, "Oh my God, AI is coming." We've had the framework. And the mantra in BNY is AI for everyone, everywhere, for everything. And if you walk the corridors of BNY, nobody is going to say, "Oh, I'm worried about my job" because they're being upskilled. They're getting trained on it. They're embracing it. And as somebody said to me last week, "Dermot, in a couple of years' time, like AI will be like Excel was for you in the '90s." Yes. I used to write a lot of macros when I was a kid. Now you're going to do a lot of prompts. So it's just a different paradigm. So we're very much into it, and we're embracing it, and we're looking to innovate and disrupt ourselves so that we can be better for clients.

So that's a great way to put that. One note to -- I have to be careful what I write in my e-mails. But just on AI, I think the other side of this is like the banks have a lot of duplicative processes, compliance, et cetera, like AI can make them. So I know you don't like to use the word efficient, but create capacity, but just become higher, more profitable businesses. Like would you subscribe to that view that AI can structurally change how investors think about and how you operate the bank from a profitability standpoint?

So I kind of think of that as not a barrier. I think it's opportunity. Are you saying it's opportunity.

There's an opportunity, yes.

1000% agree with that. Yes. And so a lot of people will say, if you kind of go fintech versus BNY, okay, let's do the comparison. Low-cost start-up, 10 engineers, no capital and PhD in AI, BNY. Client base, resilience is a commercial attribute, GSIB, big client base, very good AI strategy. Who are you going to back? Yes. So I know who I back.

Got it. I think the other area that...

The other thing I would say -- sorry to interrupt. I think another important point is in order to capitalize on the opportunity that you've just described, which I think is a big opportunity, you have to be able to reimagine processes end-to-end. And so a lot of companies, whether they're financial institutions or broader have a lot of end-to-end processes that have evolved over time. And so it's worthwhile we're thinking about how to create a kind of a red team approach to reimagining end-to-end processes with AI rather than asking different parts of the process to reimagine. So how do you do the end-to-end? I think that's a strategic opportunity for a lot of companies, not just financial services.

And when you think about this, does it -- I mean, I know it's hard for you to know what competitors are not doing. But does it feel that this will become table stakes where everyone is going to be doing this. They might just have a different time line by which they get there? Or do you think it becomes a competitive advantage for BNY?

So I'm going to say it's going to be a competitive, like I'm biased there. But I would say the way I -- let's take your firm. Bank of America. Bank of America is not going to get disrupted by AI. Bank of America will get disrupted by another company who uses AI better than Bank of America. So it's not the AI is going to disrupt you. It's the humans who are using AI. And I think sometimes we lose sight of that. And so then it becomes a talent play. So it's not the AI, it's the talent that's using the AI. And I think sometimes that gets lost in the discussion. So I think I feel very good about we can -- everybody can do more on talent. And one of the things that we've done over a sustained period of time through that everywhere, everything, everywhere is training. If you want to really kind of get access to all the really nice AI stuff, you have to be a pioneer. That means you have to have done 40 hours of classroom AI training. That means you have to have taken exams. That means you have to have your badge. And so that's aspiring for people who want to learn in the new way of working. And so enterprise-wide strategy of learning and AI is super important as well. You just can't put something on somebody's desktop and say, give me an AI solution for that tomorrow. It takes time and investment. And so you have to be patient with that journey.

Got it. Two things I wanted to touch upon before we wrap up. One, just talk about digital assets, right tokenization, blockchain. There's a lot of conversation there. What does all of that mean for BNY and kind of the role that you could play, be it tokenizations or in stablecoins? Yes.

Okay. So there are a couple of answers to the question. So the CFO's answer to the question in terms of the numbers side of things, I think industry-wide is not necessarily there yet in terms of its impact from a revenue standpoint. So high thought leadership, high thinking, high partnerships, -- we've been very much a part of the financial market infrastructure for the last 241 years. We have the rails. When you're a firm that settles 99% of the U.S. treasury market every day and you're a top $5 payment clear and you have trillions of dollars of payments going through your pipes every day and 20% of the world's investable assets flows through your pipes every day, that's a lot of stuff. And so we've assembled a great team that is looking to figure out how do we write the next chapters of financial market infrastructure so that we can be part of that journey and help our clients navigate that journey. And so I would say 3 years ago, we had the beginnings of that with digital asset custody. We were the first out. We have a very small amount of business in that space. The administration and the new SEC Chair has opened -- that aperture has opened up again. And so the conversation has become a lot more meaningful and sustainable. And we are partnering with a lot of firms, and we have a lot of digital natives that are coming to talk to us about how we can partner with them. So what does that mean from a commercial stance for BNY at the moment is we do a lot of traditional services with digital natives while we partner with them on writing the rules of the road for the future. So in some of these conferences and calls, I get questions, is it a cannibalization or an opportunity? It's probably both, but it's probably for us, more opportunity than cannibalization, if I'm honest. But it's still early days. And again, Carolyn Weinberg is leading our charge on that. And our thought leadership, I think, is top class. And I think we should be -- we are very excited about what Carolyn can and will do for the firm.

And there's obviously a debate in D.C. around the crypto market infrastructure bill. I guess it was called Clarity Act. I'm not sure if it's any longer called that. But is that meaningful in terms of sort of speeding up the process of adoption of digital assets, blockchain, tokenized securities or...

I would say it's like it's going faster than it was 2 years ago. But it's still slow relative to the media print on it. Yes. So the writing is faster than the execution. And so you need to have a long-term view on a lot of this stuff, and some of it will take years. But as I was saying to Marius before we started this call, if you've been to our building, and if you haven't, please do come because we will show you the tour. On one side, we have our Hamilton ledgers from 240 years ago. And on the other side, we have our CTOC center, which is -- so we've been around when the ledgers are there, and we have our CTOC, and we're trying to figure out the landscape for the future, and we're confident that we can deliver that for our clients in a way that will serve our shareholders well.

Got it. I guess one last -- 2 questions. One, obviously, we are expecting some more clarity from a regulatory standpoint, the Basel endgame reproposal, et cetera. There's been also some conversation around liquidity rules that the regulators might look at. I'm just wondering, I know there hasn't been -- or there's not expected any meaningful impact from -- for BNY's business for the trust banks in general. But is there anything that the regulators could tweak from a liquidity perspective that could actually be advantageous or make life easier in any way? Especially given where your binding constraint is on the Tier 1 leverage.

So on liquidity, I would say the thing I worry, I think we're well capitalized, ample liquidity. We -- I always get challenged on the 6%, why are you at 6% and why are you not lower? Capital-light business model, you should be buying back all that kind of stuff. But I like to sleep well at night. We learned a lot of good lessons in the regional bank crisis about having ample liquidity. I would say there was -- they haven't really -- if I remember correctly, they were going to do something on liquidity about a year after. That hasn't happened. I think Vice Chair Bowman is focused on the capital side of the house. At some point, their attention will turn to liquidity. I would say the big advocacy point that we and others are making is the importance of the recognition of operational deposits in the liquidity framework that they are sticky. I would say that would be advocacy point number one.

Got it. And I guess last point. So you've talked about obviously returning capital to shareholders and buybacks, as you said, asset-light business. Just maybe spend a minute talking about from an inorganic standpoint, now that you've had these last 3 years of thinking about the different businesses, are there opportunities small or large that would sort of enhance the franchise, accelerate like the strategic goals that Robin and you have laid out?

So we've done some small dispositions that don't reach the level of this conversation, stuff that we viewed as noncore. Then we did the Archer acquisition, which I have to say really happy with how that's gone in terms of integration, cultural integration, technological integration. It was really good. And again, it's another classic example of how the platform operating model has helped that integrate. So just to give you -- put a fine point on it, if Archer was bought by BNY 5 years ago, it would have been bought by Asset Servicing and it would have reported into Emily, okay? All the other parts of the firm wouldn't really have known that it was being bought until an announcement date, okay? And now 18 months ago, we bought Archer for the firm and Jose in Asset Management and Jim Crowley and the leadership team in Wealth Solutions were very heavily involved because we wanted to buy a capability for the firm and not one business. And so that we took an enterprise view from a technological standpoint. And I think that's very, very important. And if you look at the latest leadership announcements with Adam Vos moving from Markets to Wealth Solutions and Jim Crowley moving into more of the commercial side of the organization, Archer is moving from the asset servicing side of the house to the Wealth Solutions side of the house because we believe that can drive Wealth Solutions in a more meaningful way in the go forward. Without platform operating model, that couldn't have been contemplated. So I think that's another big cultural unlock. And I would say the last message I would leave you is I think the message that Robin left with the leadership team when we met a couple of weeks ago, the broad leadership team of the firm is we're pivoting towards -- we're facing out more. We're pivoting out to our clients. The last 3 years has been about doing up the house. And now we've kind of renovated the house, and now we can open the door and face out to our clients in a more meaningful way. And I think that's -- at the moment, I think the firm is very excited about what that means for us as a franchise.

With that, Dermot, thank you so much.