As part of our “Meet the Team” series, we sat down with Calvin Holmquist, Peter Johnston and Dan Kramer for a roundtable discussion to hear their thoughts about the industry. In this first of three parts, the team talks about what it means to be a technology and service company with a balance sheet and what they’re hearing from clients. Some excerpts of our conversation are below.
On what they’re hearing from clients
Calvin Holmquist, Executive Vice President and Global Head of Transfer Agency and Middle Office: They ask about everything from regulatory change to what is the impact of interest rates going to be on the business going forward, but the thing that I hear most from clients are questions around; what is our competition doing, and what does that mean from an industry perspective and it is not about us giving away any confidential information, but they know that we’re dealing with dozens of clients, sometimes hundreds of clients just like them, and they are interested in industry trends, industry issues, what we’re doing and what we see the industry doing in terms of addressing those.
Peter Johnston, Executive Vice President of Operations: In my discussions with clients, it is a lot about the service issues that are out there in terms of not only how we’re servicing them, but how the service can change going forward to meet their needs. On corporate actions, most clients don’t appreciate long deadline times, and so what we’re trying to do and they are asking for shorter time periods so that they can understand the impact on the market before they make their election, and so we’re trying to work with them on how we can reduce deadline times, so that is just an example of how clients are really in tune with what the service offerings that we’re providing and what their opinions are in terms of what the changes that are needed to be made.
Dan Kramer, Executive Vice President: Our clients are demanding information earlier and more accurately. What we need to understand and continue to remember is that the end buyer of the services that we provide to our clients is really our client’s clients, and our clients are getting increasing demands from their clients to deliver information earlier, online and the conversations I have with clients are all about; how can I get more access to information and how can I get that earlier? Or how can I process transactions later so that I can provide a better service to my clients?
Peter Gau
+1 212 815 2754
peter.gau@bnymellon.com