BNY Mellon ‘comes of age’ in city

THE Bank of New York Mellon’s Manchester operation rose to the challenge posed by “worst financial crisis ever seen” and is now ready to grow again.

That’s the opinion of Jackie Williams, head of the 900-strong team in the North West, as she looks back on a successful and dramatic first five years in Manchester.

Like many in the sector never thought she’d see the “Lehman weekend”  – the spectacular collapse of the once-revered US investment bank – which plunged financial markets globally into disarray.

“It was a very, very challenging time, the Lehman’s weekend was the banking sector’s lowest point and of course in Manchester, we felt the impact.

“No one had seen anything like that before – there were huge challenges around liquidity and the whole credit market.

“The staff here were superb, they learned really quickly, which really helped us to be as controlled as we needed to be.”

BNYMellon, as it is now known, is at the heart of the financial system. It does not have retail operations but is focused on processing securities, and foreign exchange transactions across different territories.

As the financial world was rocked to its core, Jackie Williams said “exceptional”   communication from the organisation’s Wall Street-based chairman and chief executive Bob Kelly which reassured staff and urged them to focus on keeping the cogs of the financial system oiled – had been key to weathering the storm.

“The message was that we are strong and well positioned and that we must keep giving good service and that it would come right.”

She says the way the workforce in Manchester – many of whom had never worked in the financial services sector before joining the bank – responded to the crisis, exceeded her expectations.

“I have to admit I’m very proud. We deliberately took raw talent, and many first-time jobbers, and many of these people have really stretched themselves.”

The bank’s policy of teaching staff “about the business not the job” during induction was another key factor in the response to the crisis, she said

Since 2005 Bank of New York – which merged in 2007 with the Mellon Financial Corporation – to create the world’s largest securities servicing and asset management firm, has grown staff numbers from 350 to 900.

It is located across two city centre sites – the first at Piccadilly and the most recent at Spinningfields.

The two office strategy is a deliberate ploy and there are “absolutely no plans” to bring alll the staff under one roof.

“It’s a strength – in planning the second office, we worked very hard with the developers and the police. The sites are on different power grids and in different exclusion zones, so should anything bad happen, the operation would not be affected.”

She feels the Manchester operation – one of three global growth centres for the bank – came of age during the financial crisis and is now being recognised within the bank and outside it too for this.

“We’re not the new site any more, we’re standing on our own two feet and we are really proving our worth.

“I’ve had cold calls from people working globally interested in coming here – the most recent was from someone from Morgan Stanley in New York. This would never have happened five years ago.”