Preliminary brief— based on press release only. Full analysis including management tone and Q&A will be added when the transcript is available.

BK · Q3 2025 Earnings

BNY Mellon

Reported October 16, 2025

30-second summary

Revenue grew 9% YoY to $5.08B, GAAP EPS printed $1.88, and ROTCE hit 25.6% — but the headline is the FY2025 NII guide moving from "high single digit" to an explicit +12% YoY, the largest guidance step-up of the year. Management also disclosed that non-trust platform businesses now contribute ~67% of pre-tax income (up from 55% three years ago), reframing BNY's economic profile as structurally less rate-dependent. Investment & Wealth Management remains the lone segment in YoY decline at -3%, and the FY2025 payout ratio was narrowed to an explicit 90–100% band from the prior "roughly 100% plus or minus" framing.

Headline numbers

EPS

Q3 FY2025

$1.88

Revenue

Q3 FY2025

$5.08B

+9.0% YoY

Operating margin

Q3 FY2025

36.0%

Key financials

Q3 FY2025

Metric	Q3 FY2025	YoY	Q2 FY2025	QoQ
Revenue	$5.08B	+9.0%	$5.03B	+1.1%
EPS	$1.88	—	$1.93	-2.6%
Operating margin	36.0%	—	37.0%	-100bps

Guidance

Company raised full-year 2025 NII guidance to 12% YoY (from high single-digit), lowered effective tax rate by ~100 bps, and reaffirmed expense discipline while tightening capital return guidance to a specific 90-100% payout ratio band.

Guidance is issued for the full year only, refreshed each quarter. Prior and new below are the same FY updated this quarter.

New guidance

Metric	Period	Guide	YoY
Net Interest Income	Q4 FY2025	approximately flat sequentially	—

Changes to prior guidance

Metric	Period	Prior guide	New guide	Δ	Result
Net Interest Income	FY 2025	high single digit percentage points year over year	up 12% year over year	+12% vs prior high single-digit guidance (approximately +4-5 percentage points higher)	Raised
Effective Tax Rate	FY 2025	22% to 23%	21% to 22%	-1.0 to -1.5 percentage points at midpoint	Lowered
Total Payout Ratio	FY 2025	roughly 100% plus or minus of 2025 earnings through common dividends and buybacks	90% to 100%	Narrowed from '100% ± (unbounded)' to discrete 90-100% range; tightened but slightly lower midpoint	Raised

Reaffirmed unchanged this quarter: Expenses excluding notable items (up approximately 3% year over year)

Segment performance

Q3 FY2025

Segment	Q3 FY2025	YoY
Securities Services	$2.459B	+11.0%
Market and Wealth Services	$1.767B	+14.0%
Investment and Wealth Management	$0.824B	-3.0%

Capital & returns

Q3 FY2025

Segment	Q3 FY2025
Return on Common Equity	13.7%
Return on Tangible Common Equity (Non-GAAP)	25.6%
Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) Ratio	11.7%
Tier 1 Capital Ratio	14.4%
Total Deposits	$314.7 billion

Other KPIs

Q3 FY2025

Segment	Q3 FY2025
Assets Under Custody and/or Administration (AUC/A)	$57.8 trillion
Assets Under Management (AUM)	$2.1 trillion
Net Interest Margin (NIM)	1.31%

Management tone

Narrative arc: Q2 no ceiling on medium-term targets → Q3 FY2025 non-trust businesses are now the company.

"One BNY" has moved from concept to quantified output. Last quarter management was still defending the cross-sell thesis in the abstract. This quarter the supporting datapoint landed: "almost half of all asset servicing wins in the quarter represented multi-line of business solutions." Dermot McDonough framed this as the commercial model maturing — "we're delivering more to existing clients, which is a core part of the strategy" — with the trend "meaningfully higher" than last year's WisdomTree-style new-client wins.

Digital assets graduated from exploration to revenue line. A year ago digital assets were positioned as a long-dated optionality. This quarter Vince described a concrete collaboration with Goldman Sachs to "maintain, on blockchain technology, a mirror record of customers' ownership of select money market funds, live and available through our Liquidity Direct platform," including a new token-enabled share class of BNY's own Dreyfus Treasury Securities Cash Management Fund. Vince also framed stablecoins as adjacent to — not threatening — BNY's franchise because "we are in the mobility business." The shift in framing is from "we're watching this" to "we have product live."

The business-mix disclosure is the most important number on the call. Robin Vince disclosed that non-trust businesses (corporate trust, depository receipts, treasury services, clearing, collateral management, Pershing) now generate ~67% of pre-tax income, up from 55% three years ago: "if you define for a second asset servicing investments and wealth as that core of the trust bank businesses… that now represents less than 40% of the company's pre-tax income… they have higher margin… we're positioning ourselves for more different types of environments with a more diversified platform." This is the cleanest articulation yet of why ROTCE has structurally re-rated: the company is mathematically a different business than the one analysts were modeling three years ago.

AI moved from "early signs" to scaled production. Vince: "By the end of the third quarter, we had 117 AI solutions in production. That is an increase of 75% compared to the prior quarter," with over 100 "digital employees" working alongside staff on tasks such as payment validations and code repairs. The 75% QoQ deployment cadence — if even half-sustained — collapses the prior "AI benefits start in 2027–2029" timeline.

Platform benefits are now explicitly deferred to 2028. Vince's "we don't expect to see the full benefits of these new operating rhythms until early 2028" puts a stake in the ground that was missing in Q2's "longer journey" framing. This is honest, and it's the cost-side counterweight to the bullish AI cadence: the operating-model rebuild won't show up in the expense line for another two years.

Recurring themes management leaned on this quarter:

Commercial model 2.0 maturing from connectivity to integrated solutions deliveryPlatform operating model unlocking dual efficiency and client delivery velocityDigital asset infrastructure as megatrend participation and margin opportunityAI production deployment at scale (117 solutions, 75% QoQ growth, 100+ agentic digital employees)Organic growth sourcing from cross-sell, market participation, and product innovation vs. market betaNon-trust platform business mix shift driving structural margin accretion

Risks management surfaced:

Geopolitical conditions and trade policy uncertaintySustainability of enthusiastic equity marketsFiscal deficits around the worldCommercial real estate exposure in provision for credit lossesStablecoin and tokenization disruption risk if BNY fails to execute innovation

Answers to last quarter's watch list

Does Investment & Wealth Management inflect out of YoY decline? No — it got worse, printing -3% YoY vs. -2% in Q2. Management cited the previously disclosed deconversion as the headwind and said net new asset growth is expected to "re-accelerate" now that the deconversion completed in Q3 FY2025, but the inflection has not yet shown up. Status: Resolved negatively

NII trajectory against the high-single-digit FY guide. Decisively answered: the full-year guide was raised to +12% YoY, with Q4 FY2025 guided approximately flat sequentially — implying the seasonal step-down Q2 management flagged did not materialize at the scale feared. NIM expanded to 1.31% from 1.27%. Status: Resolved positively

Fee revenue growth in Q3 FY2025 given seasonality hedges. Securities Services accelerated to +11% YoY and Market & Wealth Services to +14% YoY — both up a point from Q2 despite the seasonal caution flagged last quarter. Status: Resolved positively

Does ~500bps operating leverage persist into H2? Pre-tax operating margin of 36% (vs. 37% in Q2) with revenue +9% YoY still implies meaningful positive operating leverage, though the print slipped a point QoQ. Expense discipline reaffirmed at ~3%. Status: Continue monitoring — directionally intact but slightly softer than Q2.

Concrete stablecoin/digital-asset wins and Archer integration metrics. Management announced the Goldman Sachs blockchain collaboration for money market fund records via Liquidity Direct, plus OpenEden's appointment of BNY as investment manager and primary custodian for its tokenized U.S. Treasury bills fund. Archer integration was not called out on the print. Status: Resolved positively on digital assets; Continue monitoring on Archer.

Expenses ex-notables tracking to ~3%. Reaffirmed verbatim. Status: Resolved positively

What to watch into next quarter

Whether Investment & Wealth Management revenue inflects in Q4 FY2025 now that the deconversion is complete — a third consecutive quarter of YoY decline would undermine management's "re-acceleration" framing

Q4 FY2025 NII print against the "approximately flat sequentially" guide; given the FY +12% YoY guide implies Q4 NII strength, any sequential weakness would force a reset of the upgraded trajectory

Whether Q4 FY2025 buyback pace tracks toward the upper or lower end of the 90–100% payout band, given YTD is already at 92%

Pre-tax operating margin defending 36%+; the QoQ slip from 37% to 36% is small but worth tracking given the "no ceiling on margins" tone last quarter

AI production count cadence — 117 solutions at +75% QoQ implies ~200 by year-end if maintained; a deceleration would suggest the early scaling was front-loaded

Effective tax rate landing inside 21–22% — the favorable revision is real upside but management flagged tax-benefit realization may moderate

Sources

BNY Mellon Q3 FY2025 Financial Supplement — SEC filing, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1390777/000139077725000144/ex992_financialsupplementx.htm
BNY Mellon Q3 FY2025 earnings call prepared remarks and Q&A — Robin Vince (CEO) and Dermot McDonough (CFO)

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