In Conversation with Convergence, Episode 48: George Evans and Paul Fleming of BNY Discuss Alternatives Growth and Partnerships

Who is Paul Fleming, and what is BNY's alternatives footprint?

George Evans welcomes listeners to the 48th episode of In Conversation with Convergence, a monthly podcast featuring clients and special guests, and says the podcast is heading into its fifth year. He introduces Paul Fleming, managing director and head of alternatives at BNY, which he calls the Bank of New York. At the end of the episode Evans thanks BNY, and Fleming at State Street before it, for being a great client of Convergence.

Fleming says he has been in the industry for over 25 years, including a career of more than 20 years at State Street in roles touching its alternatives client segment, and that he joined BNY a little over six months ago to head its alternatives segment practice across all of its businesses and functions. He says alternatives is both a way to describe a client base and a broad asset class that cuts across BNY's clients, so BNY takes a wide lens.

Fleming says BNY has a big footprint in the space, touching a vast majority of the market in the number of managers and limited partners (LPs) it works with, through asset servicing, payments, wealth, markets, and corporate trust. He says alternatives is the fastest growing client segment across the entire product lineup, creating opportunity to help clients manage scale, complexity, and uncertainty. Evans says Convergence's database suggests BNY has over 400 to 500 clients in about 16 jurisdictions, and notes recent industry awards in custody, fund administration, and private credit. Fleming says BNY is a 240-year-old organization that touches a large percentage of the world's investable assets on any given day, and that much of the recognition predates his arrival.

What are Fleming's strategic priorities?

Fleming says his role is new to the organization, so BNY is first organizing itself differently, which affects market coverage, marketing, and thought leadership. He says BNY is well positioned in certain products and asset classes to help clients with their growth aspirations, spanning markets activity such as foreign exchange (FX) overlay and securities lending, asset servicing, newer more retail-oriented product structures, and the wealth space. He says some parts of BNY have a unique opportunity to help clients manage scale, complexity, and growth areas, not just asset classes but product types.

Asked whether he is building a more global team and focusing on particular jurisdictions, Fleming says it is certainly a global team and that BNY's focus goes where clients believe they can grow: the wealth channels, more liquid products, and the ability to consume and use data. He says BNY takes a collaborative approach, sitting down with clients about where they are going and lining that up with its strategic planning and investment decisions.

How does BNY approach building, buying, and partnering?

Evans, who says he spent a dozen years at JP Morgan, notes the age-old discussion of build or buy and asks about key partnerships and acquisitions, citing Archer and AltsBridge among others. Fleming says BNY has talented internal teams that build tools and capabilities, and that the share of its investment pool allocated to data and technology for alternatives is, in his words, outsized given the growth. He says BNY also looks at a broader ecosystem of partners that can plug in for data solutions, operational scale, and markets activity.

Fleming says that where BNY sees a deficit in substance, market coverage, or capabilities that would take too long to build, it looks to acquire. He cites Archer, a separately managed account (SMA) technology platform that aligns with client needs and where the market is going and that BNY would have had a really hard time building itself, and says BNY acquired the firm and team and expects more from it as it integrates. Evans notes there are over 600 administrators and 1,400 custodians in the world and says that this kind of partnering and acquiring is being done at the top end of the market.

How is BNY helping clients through market volatility?

Evans describes tariffs at 25% in the morning and 50% in the afternoon and markets swinging daily, and asks what BNY is doing to help clients. Fleming says a handful of BNY leaders, including its CEO, would be heading to the Milken Conference in Los Angeles that weekend. He says he has been going for about 10 years and is not sure there has been more buzz about the broader world at that conference than there will be this year, other than perhaps around 2008 and 2009, which he did not attend.

Fleming says BNY has been around for 240 years, touches most markets, asset classes, and client types, and has seen administrations and policies come and go. He says BNY does not have a crystal ball but is good at helping clients manage complexity and uncertainty through markets, servicing, custody, payments, and wealth, by making itself available, sharing ideas and feedback from its market relationships, and helping clients think through managing their business. Evans says that staying power provides reassurance to clients.

What is BNY's view on lift-outs and co-sourcing?

Evans notes that in the fund administration world recent deals have involved high multiples and that private equity has invested more in independent administrators, and asks whether the bank has a strong view on lift-outs or co-sourcing of a manager's middle and back office. Fleming says he would not characterize it as a strong view: BNY is always open to the conversation and has plenty of them.

Fleming says a lift-out would have to be clearly closing a gap or deficit in capability, asset class, or market, and would not make BNY's operating model more complex. He says BNY would be more open if a client needed to move to manage its business more efficiently and BNY wanted more substance in that market, or if someone had built something unique in data and technology that would take BNY longer to build. He says that, broadly, rolling up middle and back office functions to gain share is not something BNY is particularly interested in.

What did Fleming say about AI?

Fleming says BNY is very focused on AI and has developed an internal platform called Eliza, which he says over 80% of its more than 50,000 employees have been trained on, letting employees get results through AI and machine learning in their daily work with some interesting internal outcomes. He says there are emerging opportunities to extend the technology to helping manage processes for clients and that more is to come. Evans says Convergence has been doing AI for some time, that it has had a real impact on its analytics, and that AI also forces new thinking by introducing things people would not have thought of.

How is BNY preparing for the democratization of private assets?

Evans asks how the bank is preparing for private assets becoming available to retail investors and 401(k) plans, noting what some of the big names in the industry are doing. Fleming says BNY's view, from data to operations to wealth management, is that it is here and it is the future, that clients tell BNY they are building their businesses assuming it is the next big wave or series of waves of growth, and that BNY believes that. He says BNY is investing internally in capabilities to support activity in that space and has its eye on assets it could use in partnership or through acquisition.

Fleming says pockets of wealth, the mass affluent, and others are massively underallocated to the space, the thinking has evolved about letting more investors into these asset classes, and the policy climate in Washington may over time be more favorable, so BNY is not surprised that clients see it as the next big wave. He says BNY's job is to help clients through the mechanics, analytics, and trading as they structure products and scale. Evans says the growth projections Convergence sees are enormous but that his biggest concern, with possible deregulation, is risk: an average investor understanding the risk in a hedge fund versus a mutual fund in a 401(k), so a lot of consumer education is still ahead.

What differentiates BNY, according to Fleming?

Asked for an elevator pitch, Fleming names four things. The first is culture, which he says is one of the reasons he joined. The second is BNY's global footprint and track record, with a legacy of 240 years and real depth in what it does. The third is the breadth of product solutions across all of its businesses and functions, which he says differentiates BNY from the hundreds of providers in the space because only a very small handful can bring everything to the table. The fourth is focus from the top of the house down on helping clients position for mega trends, with most clients talking about doubling or tripling the size of their businesses over a reasonable period.

Fleming says that if BNY cannot help clients grow and scale, he does not know who can, and that this takes the right focus and investment in how BNY is organized and in its product capabilities. Evans agrees that only a short list of mega global firms can deliver that breadth and says it comes down to who executes best.

Which figures did Evans and Fleming cite?

The table below lists figures as the speakers state them in May 2025. They are their statements, not independently verified.

Figures stated in Episode 48, May 2025

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Topics Covered