America’s oldest bank sent a small team to Pune in 2004. Today India is BNY’s single largest location in the world — and where 40% of its global AI innovation happens.
BNY was founded in 1784 by Alexander Hamilton. It oversees $59.3 trillion in assets under custody and administration — the largest custodian bank in the world. Nearly all of the top 100 banks globally work with it.
In December 2004 it incorporated a subsidiary in Pune, registered as Mellon India Private Limited. The mandate was straightforward — support global financial services operations from India. Nobody was calling it a strategic bet.
Twenty years later it looks like one of the best long-term decisions in global banking.
The early years
The Pune operation started with financial services processes — reconciliations, settlements, fund accounting, client reporting. The team delivered. BNY’s Global Delivery Centre in Pune earned ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 27001:2013 certifications, running to the same standards as its operations anywhere in the world.
In September 2012 Chennai came in — a second location with a stronger technology orientation. Engineers, software developers, and systems architects joined the operations teams. The Global Delivery Centre now spanned two cities and a significantly wider range of work.
Engineering leadership placed in India
In October 2023 BNY appointed Pawan Panjwani as Head of Engineering, India. Based in Chennai, he reports directly to Bridget Engle, BNY’s Chief Information Officer and Global Head of Engineering — leading the engineering teams across both Pune and Chennai.
Engle said at the time: “His global industry experience and track record for advancing technology platforms will help our firm leverage the full potential of our Chennai and Pune locations.”
Placing the India engineering head in a direct line to the global CIO is not ceremonial. It reflects how central India had become to how BNY builds and owns technology globally.
The AI chapter
BNY built a proprietary AI platform called Eliza — named after Eliza Hamilton, wife of the bank’s founder — that runs across the entire organisation globally. It operates on a multi-agentic framework connected to all major large language models. 40% of BNY’s global AI hubs are in India.
Robin Vince, CEO of BNY, speaking in Pune in May 2025, said: “We have 40 per cent of our AI hubs located here in India. Tapping into that expertise and those capabilities, and being part of the growing economy, is essential for us. We have 18,000 people in India — this is our single largest location in the world in terms of headcount.”
On where innovation is actually happening: “Much of our AI innovation is happening right here. We focus our investments where there is talent. And there is an enormous amount of AI talent and engineering talent here in India.”
On what the next phase looks like: “The next-generation growth isn’t about having more people. It’s about greater capabilities and what those people can do. The productivity of these 18,000 people is going to increase significantly because of AI.”
The numbers
BNY’s India operations entity generated ₹3,510 crore in revenue for the financial year ending March 2025, with a one-year revenue CAGR of 19% and EBITDA CAGR of 28%. The Chennai technology entity generated ₹2,980 crore for the same period. The Global Delivery Centre employs over 7,000 operations professionals across Pune and Chennai. Total India headcount is 18,000.
These are not support-cost numbers. They are the output of a global delivery operation running mission-critical financial infrastructure for clients across the world.
Twenty years
In 2004 BNY came to India with a back-office mandate and a modest Pune team. It stayed. It invested. It raised the ceiling of what it trusted India to do — operations to technology, technology to engineering, engineering to AI.
The back office in Pune is long gone. In its place is an 18,000-person operation where 40% of the world’s largest custodian bank’s AI innovation is led from India, built in India, and scaling in India.
That is what twenty years of commitment looks like.
BNY was founded in 1784 and is headquartered in New York. It oversees $59.3 trillion in assets under custody and administration as of December 31, 2025.
