Lanan Nguyen
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The oldest U.S. bank is getting a new name.
Bank of New York Mellon (NYSE:) is using BNY as its new name, it announced Tuesday. The company also introduced signage with the three-letter name in block letters at its main offices.
Since its founding 240 years ago by Alexander Hamilton, the founding father of the United States later immortalized in the Broadway musical, BNY has grown to control $48.8 trillion in assets and serves as a bank for other financial institutions, known as a custodian. The new name is part of an effort to expand BNY’s image to include other lines of business, including markets, asset management and investment management.
BNY is the oldest continuously operating company in New York City, and its founding predates the signing of the U.S. Constitution in 1787.
“While we have long been known as a reliable and resilient company, surviving and thriving for more than two centuries has also required a continued focus on innovation,” CEO Robin Vince wrote in a memo to employees Tuesday.
Since taking over the company in March 2022, Vince has taken on new leadership and focused on growth in areas such as real-time payments and artificial intelligence, while improving efficiency. The executive worked for 26 years at Goldman Sachs, where he rose to the position of chief risk officer.
BNY shares are up about 14% in 2024, compared with 10% for other bank stocks. Its earnings per share and revenue grew last year.
“Today, BNY is broader” than its traditional custody business, said Ken Usdin, an analyst at Jefferies. “Marketplace and wealth services are the largest segment of the business, the most profitable and the fastest growing… the company has rightly emphasized this direction of travel.”
The bank’s rebranding is the first since it shrunk to BNY Mellon 17 years ago. It follows a trend towards brevity on Wall Street after decades of mergers and acquisitions that have led to increasingly longer names.
BNY also unveiled a new turquoise arrow logo, which will precede the all-caps name already widely used in financial circles. Some of its divisions will also be renamed: BNY Investments, BNY Wealth and BNY Pershing.
The bank’s legal name will remain The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation.