The international investment banking company BNY Mellon has won a global award for innovation in contracting as a result of its work with the AI-powered contract lifecycle management company Evisort.

Global Custodian magazine named BNY Mellon recipient of its Innovation Award for Client Contracting for the bank’s work with Evisort to support the contractual process for customers of its securities custody services.

“BNY Mellon partnered with artificial intelligence platform Evisort to remove the pain points from the contractual process for its custody clients,” Jonathan Watkins, managing editor, Global Custodian, said in announcing the award.

According to Evisort, it worked with BNY Mellon’s managing counsel in charge of client CLM, Oliver Round, to reduce the time required to reach an executable agreement.

Its platform allows BNY Mellon to develop customized initial contracts tailored to clients and to electronically communicate with internal stakeholders for approval of special terms.

This workflow, Evisort said, builds a digital library to accelerate key business decisions, providing the ability to reuse data contained within contracts.

“By applying AI capabilities here in this process, we are looking to anticipate the preferences of our clients in the very first draft of a contract,” said Noam Tasch, global head of digital partnerships at BNY Mellon, in an interview with Global Custodian.

“The AI is going to help us identify what kind of terms they are interested in or likely want to see in a contract. Ultimately by being able to anticipate those preferences and provisions, we expect to significantly limit the contracting pain points that we previously were experiencing.”

Jerry Ting, founder and CEO of Evisort, said he is pleased to have provided the technology that helped BNY Mellon win this award.

“We’re excited to support BNY Mellon’s goal to provide a world-class digital client onboarding experience,” he said.

Photo of Bob Ambrogi Bob Ambrogi

Bob is a lawyer, veteran legal journalist, and award-winning blogger and podcaster. In 2011, he was named to the inaugural Fastcase 50, honoring “the law’s smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries and leaders.” Earlier in his career, he was editor-in-chief of several legal publications, including The National Law Journal, and editorial director of ALM’s Litigation Services Division.