Maybe as a former colleague, is an easier question on the follow-up. I guess as you sort of think about the dynamics in the banking space over the last month, 1.5 months, sort of the disruption that, that’s created and some of the opportunities that you guys might see on the back of that, whether it’s retaining some of the deposits that came over or some new areas within the fee side of the equation. Where do you think you could lean into most to gain extra share?Robin Vince Look, Alex, I’ll start that. Look, I think the events of March have really shown the importance of asset liability management as a key discipline. And so whether you start on the asset side and think about tailoring your liabilities accordingly you start on the liability side and make sure that you’ve got the right duration of assets and the right composition of assets.
That to me is lesson number one. I’m sure we’ll see a bunch of outcomes from that from policymakers over time as that all gets digested.We’re in the preparedness business, not the predicting business, and that goes to everything across the franchise and we’ve positioned ourselves well for this, and we positioned ourselves so that we would be able to deal with lots of different eventualities, and critically, to your question that we could help clients through those various different eventualities. And so, we’re proud of the fact that we’ve served as a little bit of a port in the storm for some of our clients. We’ve had a lot of net new accounts opened in various angles on the business.And I think it’s reaffirmed for us and we’ve said this before, that resiliency is a commercial attribute.
We spend a lot of money on resiliency. We spend money in terms of making sure that our technology systems are state-of-the-art all of the investment that we’ve made over the course of the past few years, our investment in cyber, but it’s also investment in the resiliency of our balance sheet and the combination of that allows us to then be able to use times like this to be able to attract clients to the platform.Dermot talked about a bit more about that ecosystem, which is another example, which is we built businesses over time, and we’ve lent into investments in those businesses that allow clients to be able to get what they need within our ecosystem, even when they may be a little risk on, they may be a little risk off, they may favor deposits, they may favor a money market fund, they may favor equities, they may favor fixed income, but we have all of those cylinders, if you will, to the engine to be able to help our clients.We think that breadth and that diversification of the business which is built up over a period of time and which we have been leaning into is very, very important.
I know we get described as a trust bank. And by the way, we’re proud of the trust that, that Monica implies, but remember that our most profitable, highest growth, highest margin segment of Market and Wealth Services contains a set of businesses which you would not find in a trust bank.Operator Our next question will come from Brennan Hawken with UBS.Brennan Hawken Dermot, welcome to welcome to the role. Looking forward to working with you. A question on the NII reiteration, Dermot. So previously, there was an expectation that noninterest-bearing deposits would get back to the historic 20% to 25% range. Is that still the case? And can you maybe add a little color on why you think the noninterest bearing deposits have stayed above that range that we’ve seen in prior history.
Is there a business mix shift change that has happened or any other structural reason which could cause it?Dermot McDonogh Thanks for the question, Brennan. So like the way I kind of think about it again is like I know I’ve said it a couple of times, it really is NIBs and BNY Mellon is really is an ecosystem point that I will start with. Clients leave and we don’t leave with the deposit product. Clients come to our ecosystem for a range of products, and they leave their cash with us to prosecute that business.So, I’ll pick out three examples like Corporate Trust, NIB stay with us because they have to make coupon payments. Treasury Services clients leave balances with us to offset fees. Asset Servicing balances stay with us because of underlying client activity.
And then our Clearance and Collateral Management business, I mentioned another one, we have decent NIBs there. So our businesses are bigger than a few years ago. Balances are bigger and clients are doing more with us. So NIBs are just attractive to the ecosystem.So then you kind of take a look at history and you do the bottoms-up analysis. And through the last cycle, NIBs did bottom out at the 20% range. Currently, we’re at — we’re still at around the 26% range. It stayed sticky. And I think our reason that you could ascribe to that is clients left cash with us in March because they just wanted to leave and use the safety and resilience of our balance sheet and just it stays there.And so, in our forward outlook in terms of why we reiterate the 20% guidance with the skew to the upside is, we expect that to moderate, not meaningfully, but in line with our projection and the work that we did at the beginning of the year.
So we feel good about where it is at the moment. We feel good about the forecast. And it’s been stickier in the past than we projected it to be is how I would answer it.Robin Vince But we’re not relying on that stickiness. And I think that is an important point that Dermot mentioned. And so to the extent that we are — we will harvest the benefits as we have them, but we definitely recognize that they could go down to the prior cycle those in percentage composition terms, and we’re managing ourselves accordingly.Brennan Hawken That’s very, very clear, all that color. Robin, you spoke to — you actually said it very eloquently resiliency as a commercial attribute. In the past, you’ve spoken to the embedded position that Bank of New York has a counterparty.
How are you thinking about utilizing that position and that commercial attribute of resiliency in order to drive revenue? Do you have any additional color or commentary that you can provide on how you’ve been thinking about that?Robin Vince Sure. So look, we’ve been quite careful over the course of the events of March to help our clients and to welcome clients into the ecosystem, but we have not wanted to profit from the fact that there’s been stress in the system. And so that’s obviously an important line, and we participated, as you know, one of the 11 banks that participated in helping another key participant in the financial system with a large deposit.So, we are very cognizant of our role in the system and the responsibility that we have to the system given the role that we play, but at the same time, over time, we do view this resiliency to be a strong commercial asset.
So if you step back from the whole of BNY Mellon, I think of ourselves as sort of offering a couple of things that are really differentiating. One is this 239-year history where we touch 20% of the world’s investable assets.We are the world’s largest custodian. We are the world’s largest collateral manager. We have that $1.3 trillion worth of cash in the ecosystem. We have another $5.5 trillion worth of tri-party. That’s $7 trillion in total in that space, largest depository receipts firm, number one in the broker-dealer, Pershing, Wealth Management Infrastructure space, et cetera. We have these terrific individual components.And for us, bringing them together and actually being able to demonstrate to our clients the breadth of the platform with resiliency that we offer, we think that’s a winning combination and one that over time, as I’ve talked about before, we don’t think we’ve taken full advantage of.
So, it is telling the story of who we are, our place in the world, the roles that we play and helping our clients to realize just the breadth of activity that they can actually do with us and the fact that they can trust and rely on us.Operator And our next question will come from Mike Mayo with Wells Fargo Securities.Mike Mayo Well, as you said to me at the annual meeting, it’s a new country, new firm, a new job. And so just pulling the lens out a little bit, now that I can ask you a question specifically, how do you approach the CFO job? I mean, what skill set do you bring to the position. I know Emily is still there, bigger and better, but how might you look at things a little bit differently? What kind of lens you use? And what are your kind of objectives, say, over the next several years?Dermot McDonogh Okay.
So it’s kind of interesting, you asked the question, Mike. When Robin and I talked about the opportunity and when I decided to join, I listened to the first earnings call after I’ve made the decision to join. And Robin, and he’s first as kind of CEO apparent, he talked about connecting the dots across the enterprise, and he’s just answered in the question that he just answered there, he talked about that, too. And so, in my prior life, connecting the dots across the enterprise was a thing that I majored on.I also grew up in the financial world, and I intend, hope and plan to bring financial discipline across the firm. We have a great finance team here at BNY Mellon. I couldn’t be prouder of what they do. And so I kind of think about the role in three ways.
One is working with all of you. clients, regulators, external stakeholders, really kind of delivering the message of what we’re about at BNY Mellon over the next several years. So I see that as very important.And then internally, working with the executive committee and the rest of the leadership of the firm and the finance team to develop really good financial analysis in which we can make good strategic decisions about the way we want to take the firm. And that’s a lot of work. But the team has already done a good job. And look, you’re beginning to see the fruits of this come out in the expense area and other parts.In terms of our top three priority for this year is really is about slowing the expense growth of the firm. We’ve made a commitment, one quarter in, we’re delivering on us.
