BNY PERSONAL BOND
SEPARATELY MANAGED ACCOUNT
Personalized cashflows. Scaled.
BNY PERSONAL BOND
A New Approach to Income Delivery
BNY Personal Bond SMA helps advisors move beyond traditional portfolio construction to create tailored, client-specific cashflows. By aligning investments to individual income needs, advisors seek to deliver more consistent retirement outcomes while maintaining the flexibility to support growth, adapt to changing circumstances, and aim to preserve wealth for future generations.
Features
Personalized income
Design client‑specific income strategies built around defined needs and time horizons.
Cashflow consistency
Move beyond reliance on market timing and withdrawal strategies by aligning portfolio cashflows to client needs.
Scale your proposition
Implement a repeatable, efficient framework for retirement income delivery—reducing complexity and time spent on portfolio construction.
Potential Benefits
01
Stable Cashflow
Portfolio of bonds selected to meet your client's personal cashflow needs with high certainty.
02
Flexibility and Control
Easily adjust cashflows, make contributions, take withdrawals or liquidate as your client's needs change.
03
Active Management
Bonds are actively screened by analysts and portfolios can be rebalanced over time to manage default risk.
04
Institutional Heritage
Helping financial advisors meet the personal cashflow needs of their clients.
Implementation
A Smarter Path to Income Consistency
By aligning contractual bond payments to each client’s income needs, we believe BNY Personal Bond Strategy creates a more consistent income floor—reducing sequencing risk, limiting the need to sell assets in stressed markets, and lowering reliance on market timing.
See Personal Bond SMA in action
Explore how the advisor app turns client income goals into tailored cashflow illustrations and client-ready proposals.
Insights
Personalized Cashflows. Scaled.
Personal Bond SMA enables advisors to move beyond portfolio construction to deliver precise, client‑specific cashflows.
Sequencing Risk
Retirement income strategies can often create uncertainty, leading many retirees to underspend.
Getting to Know Insight Investment
BNY’s leading fixed income specialist seeking to deliver consistent outcomes through intentional investing.
Frequently Asked Questions
- It aims to secure more predictable cashflows by reducing the need to sell during unfavorable market conditions.
- Allow other assets to pursue potential growth over the long-term, unencumbered by cashflow needs.
Ladders look like BNY Personal Bond Strategy, but we believe they play a different role in a portfolio
Rolling ladders are closer to traditional constant-duration bond portfolios
- Primary objective: serve as a ballast to equity portfolios
- Secondary objective: throw off coupon income, which will be variable based on interest rates over time
- Risks to objectives: default risk; interest rate risk (coupon income will go down if rates fall; portfolio value will go down if rates rise)
BNY Personal Bond Strategy has only one objective, and fewer risks to future cashflows
- Primary objective: generate personalized cashflow over specific time period at attractive yield, mitigating risk of drawing down other volatile assets
- Risks to objectives: default risk (interest rates affect portfolio value but not cashflows)
Maturing ladders are more like BNY Personal Bond Strategy, but:
- They are not personalized
- E.g., a 1–10-year maturing ladder gives you 10 years of maturing bonds, with more coupons earlier than later – a declining total cashflow pattern
- Maturing ladders: Cashflows are a byproduct of the bonds that were bought to build the ladder, not the objective
- BNY Personal Bond Strategy: Highly-customizable and flexible – choose the cashflows first, and the bonds are bought to match that
- Retirement income
- Trust income
- Inherited IRAs
- Required minimum distributions
- Annuity placement
- Private asset capital calls
- Charitable donations
- Mortgage payments
- Alimony payments
CREDIT SELECTION: Build portfolios with bonds we believe are positioned to meet their obligations
- Dedicated credit analysts establish a disciplined “Buy and Maintain” universe of bonds we are comfortable holding to maturity
- This institutional-quality bond universe is also used in portfolios for some of the world’s largest pension plans
OPTIMIZATION: Target attractive yield while aligning portfolios to specific cashflow needs
- Portfolios are optimized to seek the highest available yield while meeting defined cashflow and diversification parameters
ACTIVE PORTFOLIO MAINTENANCE: Continuously monitor and manage portfolios over time
- Holdings are actively monitored for changes in credit quality and may be removed if they no longer meet our “Buy and Maintain” standards
- New bonds may be added when opportunities arise to potentially enhance portfolio value
Today’s market backdrop may create a compelling opportunity for advisors to help clients put bonds to work, as equity prices are historically expensive relative to their earnings compared to bond yields. (Source: Insight Investment; as of June 30, 2026)
BNY Personal Bond Strategy is designed to help advisors deliver more personalized, efficient cashflow matching for clients.
Investors in need of cash flow, like retirees, can take advantage of the contractual nature of bond coupons and principal repayments by creating a cash-flow-matched bond strategy. In this strategy, bonds are selected such that the coupon and principal repayments from the bonds add up to the cash flow needs of the client.
Unlike a traditional rolling bond ladder, in which proceeds from bonds are reinvested, a cash-flow-matched bond ladder is largely immune from interest rate risk. Once purchased, the targeted cash flows will be paid, regardless of what happens to interest rates – as long as the bonds do not default. And with sufficient diversification across bond issuers, default risk decreases.
If you tried to generate the same cash flow with a traditional constant-duration bond portfolio (like most bond funds and ETFs), we believe you may add two significant risks: 1) you might be forced to sell at a loss when rates are high (and bond prices are low); and 2) you might have to reinvest when rates are low (and bond prices are high). Cash-flow-matched bond strategies use the same universe of bonds, with the same yields, but they are engineered in a way that protects investors from these risks.
FOR FINANCIAL PROFESSIONALS AND INSTITUTIONAL INVESTORS ONLY. NOT FOR USE WITH THE GENERAL PUBLIC.
The BNYM Insight Personal Bond SMA is presently operating in a pilot stage within BNY. The Personal Bond SMA is not an insurance contract and is not insured by any state insurance fund. It is not a bank deposit and is not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other federal government agency. It is not guaranteed by a bank or any of its affiliates.
Should state exempt from federal taxes but may be subject to state and local taxes. Consult tax accountant disclosure.
Separately Managed Accounts (SMAs) are offered by BNY Mellon Securities Corporation in its capacity as a registered investment adviser.
Investors should consider the investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses of an SMA carefully before investing.
No investment strategy or risk management technique can guarantee returns or eliminate risk in any market environment. Asset allocation and diversification cannot assure a profit or protect against loss.
While the bonds are chosen from same universe of bonds that many of the world's largest pensions use, there is no implication that the actual bonds chosen for the Personal Bond SMA strategy will be the same.
Bonds are subject to interest rate, credit, liquidity, call and market risks, to varying degrees. Generally, all other factors being equal, bond prices are inversely related to interest-rate changes and rate increases can cause price declines. High yield bonds involve increased credit and liquidity risk than higher rated bonds and are considered speculative in terms of the issuer’s ability to pay interest and repay principal on a timely basis. Investing in foreign denominated and/or domiciled securities involves special risks, including changes in currency exchange rates, political, economic, and social instability, limited company information, differing auditing and legal standards, and less market liquidity. These risks generally are greater with emerging market countries. Mortgage-backed securities: Ginnie Maes and other securities backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government are guaranteed only as to the timely payment of interest and principal when held to maturity. The market prices for such securities are not guaranteed and will fluctuate. Privately issued mortgage-related securities also are subject to credit risks associated with the underlying mortgage properties. These securities may be more volatile and less liquid than more traditional, government-backed debt securities. The use of derivatives involves risks different from, or possibly greater than, the risks associated with investing directly in the underlying assets. Derivatives can be highly volatile, illiquid, and difficult to value and there is the risk that changes in the value of a derivative held by the portfolio will not correlate with the underlying instruments or the portfolio’s other investments.
This material has been provided for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice or a recommendation of any particular investment product, strategy, investment manager or account arrangement, and should not serve as a primary basis for investment decisions.
Prospective investors should consult a legal, tax or financial professional in order to determine whether any investment product, strategy or service is appropriate for their particular circumstances. Views expressed are those of the author stated and do not reflect views of other managers or the firm overall. Views are current as of the date of this publication and subject to change.
The information is based on current market conditions, which will fluctuate and may be superseded by subsequent market events or for other reasons.
References to specific securities, asset classes and financial markets are for illustrative purposes only and are not intended to be and should not be interpreted as recommendations. Information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but not guaranteed. No part of this material may be reproduced in any form, or referred to in any other publication, without express written permission.
Investment advisory services in North America are provided by Insight North America LLC, a registered investment adviser and regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Insight North America LLC is associated with other global investment managers that also (individually and collectively) use the corporate brand Insight Investment and may be referred to as "Insight" or "Insight Investment."
Registration with the SEC does not imply a certain level of skill or training.
BNY Investments is the brand name for the investment management business of BNY and its investment firm affiliates worldwide. BNY is the corporate brand of The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation and may also be used as a generic term to reference the Corporation as a whole or its various subsidiaries generally. BNY Investment Advisor, Inc., Insight Investment and BNY Mellon Securities Corporation are subsidiaries of BNY.
© 2026 BNY Mellon Securities Corporation, 240 Greenwich Street, 9th Floor, New York NY, 10286.
Not FDIC-Insured | No Bank Guarantee | May Lose Value
MARK-954043-2026-06-17