BNY Mellon

BNY (Bank of New York Mellon) is a global financial institution with a long history. To mark its 240th anniversary, the bank commissioned author Alexander Rose to write Making Money for the World: A Brief History of Bank of New York Mellon.

The challenge

A 3,000-word editorial is a rich piece of storytelling, but it isn't always what a website visitor has time for. BNY needed a way to share its history with a wider audience: a version short enough to be read at a glance, yet still true to the scale and significance of 240 years of banking.

The solution

I was brought in to summarise Alexander Rose's 3,000-word editorial into a digestible, poetic narrative.

The result appears as a summary on the history section of the BNY website, giving visitors a way into the story and inviting them to explore the full history further.


Faith in the name

A rumble. Then a crash. Housing destroyed. Pre-war population halved. The nation in peril, close to collapse.

A group of gentlemen rose, like phoenix from the ash, to establish a Bank, and put the country’s national debt in the past.

Hamilton’s financial revolution ignited a boom. The Exchange bell rung, not a moment too soon. Credit revived, prosperity in sight, the era of trust gave the country back its might.

The Bank of New York funded canals and railroad lines, modernising the country through a ‘project of vast design’.

The era of enterprise took off. The age of the consumer had arrived. Sparking the era of innovation – and a nation, electrified.

Divestment. Reinvention. Resilience through wars. Advancing the future of finance, since 1784.

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