State Street (STT)

Risks

• Consummation of our planned acquisition of the BBH Investor Services business is subject to the receipt of regulatory approvals and the satisfaction of other closing conditions, the failure or delay of which may prevent or delay the consummation of the acquisition.
• Even if we successfully consummate our planned acquisition of the BBH Investor Services business, we may fail to realize some or all of the anticipated benefits of the transaction or the benefits may take longer to realize than expected.
• We are subject to intense competition in all aspects of our business, which could negatively affect our ability to maintain or increase our profitability.
• We are subject to variability in our assets under custody and/or administration and assets under management, and in our financial results, due to the significant size of our relationship with many of our institutional clients, and are also subject to significant pricing pressure due to trends in the market for custodial services and the considerable market influence exerted by those clients.
• Development and completion of new products and services, including State Street Digital or State Street Alpha, may impose costs on us, involve dependencies on third parties and may expose us to increased operational and model risk.
• Our business may be negatively affected by our failure to update and maintain our technology infrastructure.
• The COVID-19 pandemic continues to create significant risks and uncertainties for our business.
• Acquisitions, strategic alliances, joint ventures and divestitures pose risks for our business.
• The integration and the retention and development of the benefits of our acquisitions result in risks to our business and other uncertainties.
• Competition for qualified members of our workforce is intense, and we may not be able to attract and retain the personnel we need to support our business.
• Geopolitical and economic conditions and developments could adversely affect us, particularly if we face increased uncertainty and unpredictability in managing our businesses.
• Our businesses have significant International operations, and disruptions in European and Asian economies could have an adverse effect on our consolidated results of operations or financial condition.
• Our investment securities portfolio, consolidated financial condition and consolidated results of operations could be adversely affected by changes in market factors, including interest rates, credit spreads and credit performance.
• Our business activities expose us to interest rate risk.
• We assume significant credit risk to counterparties, many of which are major financial institutions. These financial institutions and other counterparties may also have substantial financial dependencies with other financial institutions and sovereign entities. These credit exposures and concentrations could expose us to financial loss.
• Fee revenue represents a significant majority of our consolidated revenue and is subject to decline, among other things, in the event of a reduction in, or changes to, the level or type of investment activity by our clients.
• If we are unable to effectively manage our capital and liquidity, including by continuously attracting deposits and other short-term funding, our consolidated financial condition, including our regulatory capital ratios, our consolidated results of operations and our business prospects, could be adversely affected.
• We may need to raise additional capital or debt in the future, which may not be available to us or may only be available on unfavorable terms.
• Any downgrades in our credit ratings, or an actual or perceived reduction in our financial strength, could adversely affect our borrowing costs, capital costs and liquidity position and cause reputational harm.
• Compliance and Regulatory Risks
• Our business and capital-related activities, including our ability to return capital to shareholders and repurchase our capital stock, may be adversely affected by our implementation of regulatory capital and liquidity standards that we must meet or as a result of regulatory capital stress testing.
• We face extensive and changing government regulation in the U.S. and in non-U.S. jurisdictions in which we operate, which may increase our costs and expose us to risks related to compliance.
• We are subject to enhanced external oversight as a result of certain agreements entered into in connection with the resolution of prior regulatory or governmental matters.
• Our businesses may be adversely affected by government enforcement and litigation.
• Our efforts to improve our billing processes and practices are ongoing and may result in the identification of additional billing errors.
• Any theft, loss, damage to or other misappropriation or inadvertent disclosure of, or inappropriate access to, the confidential information we possess could have an adverse impact on our business and could subject us to regulatory actions, litigation and other adverse effects.
• Our calculations of credit, market and operational risk exposures, total RWA and capital ratios for regulatory purposes depend on data inputs, formulae, models, correlations and assumptions that are subject to change over time, which changes, in addition to our consolidated financial results, could materially impact our risk exposures, our total RWA and our capital ratios from period to period.
• Changes in accounting standards may adversely affect our consolidated financial statements.
• Changes in tax laws, rules or regulations, challenges to our tax positions with respect to historical transactions, and changes in the composition of our pre-tax earnings may increase our effective tax rate and thus adversely affect our consolidated financial statements.
• The market transition away from the use of the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) and other reference rates affected by reference rate reform as interest rate benchmarks may impose additional costs on us and may expose us to increased operational, model and financial risk.
• Our controls and procedures may fail or be circumvented, our risk management policies and procedures may be inadequate, and operational risks could adversely affect our consolidated results of operations.
• Cost shifting to non-U.S. jurisdictions and outsourcing may expose us to increased operational risk and reputational harm and may not result in expected cost savings.
• Any failures of or damage to, attack on or unauthorized access to our information technology systems or facilities or disruptions to our continuous operations, including the systems, facilities or operations of third parties with which we do business, such as resulting from cyber-attacks, could result in significant
• costs and reputational damage and impacts our ability to conduct our business activities.
• Long-term contracts expose us to pricing and performance risk.
• Our businesses may be negatively affected by adverse publicity or other reputational harm.
• We may not be able to protect our intellectual property, and we are subject to claims of third-party intellectual property rights.
• The quantitative models we use to manage our business may contain errors that result in inadequate risk assessments, inaccurate valuations or poor business and risk management decisions, and lapses in disclosure controls and procedures or internal control over financial reporting could occur, any of which could result in material harm.
• Our reputation and business prospects may be damaged if our clients incur substantial losses in investment pools that we sponsor or manage or are restricted in redeeming their interests in these investment pools.
• We may incur losses arising from our investments in sponsored investment funds, which could be material to our consolidated results of operations in the periods incurred.
• Climate change may increase the frequency and severity of major weather events and could adversely affect our business operations and resiliency, and related impacts to us, our clients, our counterparties and financial market participants could adversely affect our consolidated results of operations and financial condition.
• We may incur losses as a result of unforeseen events including terrorist attacks, natural disasters, the emergence of a new pandemic or acts of embezzlement.