BNY

On February 23, 1784, an advertisement in the New-York Packet called on “respectable gentlemen” to establish a bank, and the founding meeting was held at 6 p.m. the following evening at the Merchants’ Coffee House in New York. The bank’s founding constitution, written by Alexander Hamilton, required balanced books and dividend payments and forbade overdrafts.⁠[1]

Hamilton was appointed the first Secretary of the Treasury on September 11, 1789, and negotiated an emergency loan of $200,000 from the Bank of New York, recorded as U.S. Treasury Warrant No. 1 and paid in installments of $20,000. BritannicaEncyclopædia BritannicaEncyclopædia Britannica is a general English-language encyclopedia first published in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1768; the name also refers to its publisher, Chicago-based Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. (which presents itself as The Britannica Group). The print edition ended in 2012, and the company’s main businesses since then have been the online encyclopedia Britannica.com, digital education products for schools and libraries, and Merriam-Webster dictionaries.Open the full entry records that the bank was instrumental in securing the first loan obtained by the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States is a federal country in North America made up of 50 states, the District of Columbia as the seat of government, and territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam; its capital is Washington, D.C. The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted a resident population of 331,449,281, and the 435 seats of the House of Representatives are apportioned among the states on the basis of the census.Open the full entry and that it was chartered in 1791.⁠[1][2]

In 1792, 24 brokers and dealers founded what became the New York Stock ExchangeNew York Stock ExchangeThe New York Stock Exchange is a securities exchange on Wall Street in New York City. It traces its origins to the Buttonwood Agreement signed by 24 stockbrokers in 1792, has used its present name since 1863 and has been owned by Intercontinental Exchange since 2013.Open the full entry under a sycamore tree outside 68 Wall Street. BNY states that the Bank of New York was the first company to be publicly traded and that its stock was the first listed on the exchange.⁠[1]

In 1821 the bank lent $55,000 to the North River Steamboat Company. Britannica records that loans from the bank contributed to the construction of the Erie Canal and the New York City subway system. During the financial crisis of 1837 the state government forbade dividends; the bank paid a double dividend the following year.⁠[1][2]

In 1869 Thomas Mellon founded T. Mellon & Sons’ Bank in Pittsburgh, the forerunner of Mellon Financial Corporation; it financed ventures that later became Alcoa, Carnegie Steel Corporation and Koppers.⁠[1]

At the bank’s centenary in 1884, women held nearly a third of its shares and made up more than 40 percent of its stockholders.⁠[1]

The bank acquired the Fifth Avenue Bank in 1948, bought its first computer, an IBMIBMIBM (International Business Machines Corporation) is an American information technology company, renamed in 1924 from the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (C-T-R).Open the full entry 650, in October 1958, acquired the Empire Trust Company in 1966 and opened a London office in 1967, followed by offices in the Cayman Islands in 1972 and Singapore in 1975.⁠[1]

In 1968 Bank of New York, Inc. was incorporated as the holding company for its subsidiaries, and in 1969 it took the name The Bank of New York Company, Inc.⁠[2]

In 1988 the bank took over Irving Bank Corporation, founded in 1851; the merger with Irving Trust created the 14th-largest bank holding company in the United States. It completed 33 acquisitions between 1993 and 1998 and ten more in 2000. BNY states that in 1996 it became the first to process securities over the internet.⁠[2][1][3]

On the morning of September 11, 2001, the bank’s board was scheduled to hold a routine meeting; after the attacks on the World Trade Center, the bank moved to protect its staff and worked to reassure international markets.⁠[1]

In 2006 The Bank of New York Company reached an arrangement with JPMorgan Chase & Co.JPMorgan Chase & Co.JPMorgan Chase & Co. is a financial holding company headquartered in New York that operates investment banking, consumer and small business financial services, commercial banking, financial transaction processing and asset management under its J.P. Morgan and Chase brands; its roots trace back to the Manhattan Company of 1799.Open the full entry to exchange its retail and middle-market banking business for JPMorgan Chase’s corporate trust business; the same year it agreed to acquire Mellon Financial Corporation of Pittsburgh.⁠[2]

On July 2, 2007, The Bank of New York Company, Inc. and Mellon Financial Corporation completed their merger, forming The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol BK, with Robert P. Kelly as chief executive officer and Thomas A. Renyi as executive chairman. The combined company had more than $1 trillion in assets under management, more than $18 trillion in assets under custody or administration, $11 trillion under trusteeship and about 40,000 employees worldwide.⁠[4]

On March 10, 2022, BNY Mellon announced that chief executive Todd Gibbons would retire as CEO and leave the board on August 31, 2022, and named Robin Vince president and CEO-elect, effective immediately. As of December 31, 2021, the company had $46.7 trillion in assets under custody and/or administration and $2.4 trillion in assets under management; Joseph J. Echevarria was independent chair of the board.⁠[5]

On June 11, 2024, The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation announced that it was simplifying its umbrella brand to BNY, with an updated logo using a modern font, a refined arrow and a teal color; BNY Mellon Investment Management, BNY Mellon Wealth Management and BNY Mellon Pershing became BNY Investments, BNY Wealth and BNY Pershing, while the parent company’s legal name remained unchanged. The company said it oversaw nearly $50 trillion in assets and served clients in more than 100 markets.⁠[6]

As of November 2026, BNY’s website lists Robin Vince as Chief Executive Officer and a member of the board of directors. Vince began his career at Goldman SachsGoldman SachsGoldman Sachs is an American financial services group headquartered in New York whose businesses include investment banking, securities trading, asset management, and wealth management. It traces its origins to the commercial paper business Marcus Goldman founded in 1869; it listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1999 under the ticker GS and became a bank holding company in 2008. David Solomon serves as chairman and chief executive officer.Open the full entry as an analyst in 1994 and held posts there including chief risk officer and treasurer; he joined BNY in October 2020, served as vice chair and CEO of Global Market Infrastructure, and became president in March 2022.⁠[7]

Other members of the executive committee listed on the website include Chief Financial Officer Dermot McDonogh, Chief Operating Officer Alejandro Perez, Chief Risk Officer Rajashree Datta, General Counsel J. Kevin McCarthy, and Executive Vice Chairs James T. Crowley and Hani Kablawi.⁠[8]

BNY: Official website: https://www.bny.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[3]

X: Public account: https://x.com/bnyglobal (opens in a new window).⁠[3]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bnyglobal (opens in a new window).⁠[3]