BNY Mellon opened a representative office in Jeonju, South Korea, to better serve the country's biggest institutional investor, the National Pension Service, BNY Mellon announced Wednesday.
The new office will allow BNY Mellon to "deepen its partnership" with NPS, which appointed BNY Mellon last year as global custodian for the pension giant's offshore investments in fixed income, according to a BNY Mellon news release.
As of May 31, NPS had 30.3 trillion won ($25 billion) invested in global bonds, or 4.4% of its total portfolio, according to the NPS website.
A BNY Mellon spokesman couldn't immediately provide details on the size of the Jeonju representative office, or whether BNY Mellon is adding staff for that office or simply shifting existing employees from Seoul.
David Cruikshank, BNY Mellon's Asia Pacific chairman, predicted Jeonju will become "one of the major financial centers in Korea."
BNY Mellon's announcement about opening of a representative office there comes less than a month after State Street Corp., which provides back-office services for NPS' 142 trillion won global equities portfolio, announced it would open a representative office in Jeonju.
