Good morning, and welcome to BNY Mellon's 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. Please note that this webcast will be recorded and will consist of copyrighted material. You may not record or rebroadcast these materials without BNY Mellon's consent. I will now turn the meeting over to Joe Echevarria, Chair of the Bank of New York Mellon Corporation Board of Directors.
Thank you and good morning. We are pleased that you're able to join us this morning for our 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. As Chair of the Bank of New York Mellon Corporation's Board of Directors, I will preside over the meeting. To begin, in light of the continuing public health concerns regarding the COVID-nineteen pandemic, we are conducting our meetings solely by remote communication. You will be able to participate in the meeting by voting and submitting written questions through our virtual annual meeting portal if you held our stock as of the close of business on our record date of February 16, 2021.
Let me provide an overview of how our meeting will proceed. First, I'll call the meeting to order. Then I'll turn the meeting over to our Chief Executive Officer and fellow Board member, Todd Gibbons. Todd will make several introductions, go over some procedural matters necessary for our corporate record keeping and introduce the formal business of the meeting, including the 4 items on our agenda. He will then pause for questions and open the polls for voting on those 4 items.
After the polls are closed, our corporate secretary will report on the voting results. Following that, I'll adjourn the meeting and Todd will present an overview of our businesses. Immediately following that brief presentation, Todd will use the remaining time to take general questions from stockholders through our virtual annual meeting portal. I now call this meeting to order and turn it over to Todd.
Thank you, Joe, and thank you to our stockholders who are joining us this morning. First of all, I would like to introduce the other members of our Board of Directors who are joining us through the webcast today: Linda Cook, Jeffrey Goldstein, Ted Kelly, Ralph Izzo, Elizabeth Robinson, Sam Scott, Fred Terrell and Al Zohler. In addition to our directors, we are joined on the webcast by 2 newly nominated Director candidates, Amy Gilliland and Guru Gowrapin. If elected, Amy and Guru will formally join the Board following this annual meeting. Both Amy and Guru have backgrounds and experience that will complement our Board's working dynamic.
In particular, Amy and Guru bring expertise in information technology and cybersecurity as well as strategic planning and operations at complex companies. Finally, I'd like to thank Jennifer Morgan for her dedicated service as a Board member. Also joining us through the webcast today are Emily Portney, our Chief Financial Officer and Kevin McCarthy, our General Counsel. In addition, Megan Reardon and Michael Pierce of KPMG LLP, representatives from our independent registered public accountants are on the line. They will be available to take questions during the question and answer portion of the meeting.
The proxy holders for this annual meeting are James Killerlane, Zachary Levine and Blair Petrillo. Our inspectors of election are Fran Carlucci, Eleanor Radeen and James Coelen is also acting as secretary for the annual meeting. The following rules have been established to govern the conduct of this meeting. Because this is a meeting of our stockholders, only our stockholders are permitted to vote and ask questions during the annual meeting. You need to have held stock as of the close of business on the record date of February 16, 2021, to vote or submit questions, while participating in this annual meeting.
To vote or submit questions, please follow the instructions available on our dedicated virtual Annual Meeting portal. The instructions available on our dedicated virtual Annual Meeting portal. And as a reminder, we will only be answering questions that are submitted in writing via the portal. Business will be taken up in the order set forth on the The company does not intend The company does not intend to address any questions that are not in accordance with the Annual Meeting's rules of conduct that are posted on the virtual meeting website. In the interest of fairness to all stockholders, these rules will be strictly observed.
Please note that this meeting is being recorded. However, no one attending via the webcast is permitted to use any audio recording device. You may submit questions at any time during the annual meeting, so please don't hesitate to submit your questions through our portal even now. I will turn the formalities that are necessary for our record keeping. We must ascertain that we have a meeting duly called and organized and that a quorum is present.
Will the corporate secretary please present his report?
Thank you, Todd. I will now proceed with my report on the formalities of the meeting. I have in my possession a copy of the notice of this meeting together with affidavits showing that the notice, the proxy statement and the annual report were duly mailed on March 2, 2021 to stockholders of record as of the close of business on February 16, 2021 which is the record date for determining persons entitled to vote at this meeting. In addition, I have in my possession the oath subscribed to by the inspectors of election. I also have in my possession certified lists of the stockholders of the corporation as of the close of business on February 16, 2021.
A copy of the list of stockholders entitled to vote at this meeting has been open for inspection by any stockholder desiring to do so for at least 10 days prior to the meeting during normal business hours at the corporation's offices at 240 Greenwich Street, New York, New York and is available for inspection by any stockholder attending this meeting through the virtual meeting portal. As of the close of business on February 16, 2021, there were 876,951,004 100 and 16 shares of common stock outstanding with each share being entitled to 1 vote per share. The number of shares necessary for a quorum is a majority of the shares outstanding on the record date. The number of votes for which proxies have been received to date total approximately 88.23 percent of the total eligible votes. Accordingly, a quorum is present and the meeting is duly constituted.
Those represented by proxies received morning as well as those to be voted in person will be included in the inspector's reports, which will be filed with the records of the meeting. That concludes my report on the formalities of the meeting.
Thank you, Jim. The meeting is now duly called and organized and a quorum is present. I will now proceed with the business of the meeting. I have moved all of the management proposals set forth in the proxy statement. We will take questions on the proposals after all of them have first been presented.
The first proposal for stockholder consideration is election of the slate of 12 directors nominated in accordance with the bylaws as set forth in the proxy statement. The second proposal for stockholder consideration is an advisory vote for the approval of the 2020 compensation of our named executive officers as disclosed in our proxy statement. The third proposal for stockholder consideration is the ratification of the appointment of KPMG LLP as the corporation's independent auditor for 2021. The 4th proposal for stockholder consideration is a stockholder proposal regarding stockholder request for a record date to initiate written consent. If either Kenneth Steiner or John Shevedden or a representative is available, I would ask that the operator unmute the proponents dedicated line so the proposal can be presented.
The proposal is set out in detail on Page 87 of the proxy statement.
Hello, this is John Chividend. Can you hear me okay?
We can, John.
Yes. Just as a point of order, it's impossible to access this meeting on the Internet and all you get is a blank sheet of paper with a dog ear on it. So it may be necessary to reconvene this meeting. I'll go forward with proposal 4, improve shareholder written consent. Charles requested our Board of Directors take the steps necessary to enable 10% of shares to request a record date to initiate written consent.
This proposal is important for us to have a greater ability to hold management accountable for poor performance since our stock price has fallen from $57 to $49 in 3 years in a bull market. Currently, it takes the formal backing of 25% of all shares that normally cast ballots at the annual meeting to do so little as to ask for a record date for written consent. Enabling 10% of shares to apply for record date for written consent makes sense because scores of companies do not even require 1% of stock ownership to do so little as request a record date. This proposal has gotten the attention of management because management has put its hand on the scale and for shareholders to pay for an extra opposition statement against this proposal. And the management statement needs to be fact checked.
Our current right to act by written consent is utterly useless. No shareholder group in its right mind would use it because it's so much more effective to call for a special shareholder meeting. Why would any group of shareholders organize 20% of shareholders to simply obtain a date on a calendar for management with the exact same group of shareholders could compel management to call a special shareholder meeting. Plus there are strong protections with written consent because any action taken by written consent would need 65% super majority approval from the shares that normally cast ballots at the annual meeting. This 65% vote requirement gives overwhelming super majority protection to management that will remain unchanged.
Taking action by written consent is a means shareholders can use to raise important matters outside the normal annual meeting cycle like the election of a new director. Now more than ever, shareholders need to have the option to take action outside of a shareholder meeting since online shareholder meetings are a shareholder engagement wasteland. With the near universal use of online annual shareholder meetings, which can only be 10 minutes long, shareholders no longer have the right for engagement with other shareholders with management and with directors at a shareholder meeting. Shareholders are also severely restricted to make their views known at online shareholder meetings because all challenging questions and comments can be screened out by management. For example, to bar constructive criticism, Goodyear management hit the mute button right in the middle of a formal shareholder proposal presentation at its 2020 shareholder meeting.
Plus AT and T management would not even allow the sponsors of shareholder proposals to read their proposals by telephone at the 2020 AT and T online annual meeting. Online meetings also give management a blank check to make false statements because shareholders who are not physically present cannot challenge false statements. The management statement next to this proposal says that shareholders should simply be satisfied with the status quo and not aspire to increase in their ability to hold management accountable. And this is at a time when our stock has fallen from $57 to $49 in 3 years. Improved shareholder written consent proposal for
Okay. Thank you, Mr. Shevedden. If any stockholder has a question or comment regarding any of the proposals, please submit it through our virtual meeting portal. You may do so by typing your question into the submit a question field and clicking submit.
We will pause for a moment. Todd, I have one question that's been submitted. How much did we pay the auditors in 2020 and in 2019?
Okay. On Page 86 of the proxy, we have that in detail. In 2020, we paid the auditors for audit fees and audit related fees, tax fees and all other fees amounted to $47,400,000 And in 2019, that number was 46,700,000 dollars Are there any other questions going on? No. Thank you.
I now call for a vote on the proposals. Any stockholder who hasn't voted or wishes to change their vote may do so by clicking on the voting button in the virtual meeting portal and following the instructions. Stockholders who have sent in proxies or voted via telephone or Internet and do not want to change their vote do not need to take any further action. The polls are now open and will remain open until voting has been completed. Okay.
I hereby declare that the polls are closed on all matters being voted upon by the stockholders. I would now ask the Corporate Secretary to report the preliminary voting results.
Thank you, Todd. I will now proceed with my preliminary report on the vote. The inspectors of election have counted the votes cast and have submitted the preliminary report. There were 773,760,931 shares voted equal to 88.23 percent of the common shares outstanding. Actual vote totals for each agenda item will be posted on our website www.bnymellon.com and reported on a current report on Form 8 ks filed with the SEC.
As to the election of directors, of the total votes cast, each director received between 89.4% 99.1% of 4 votes. As to the advisory resolution to approve the 2020 compensation of our named executive officers approximately 95.4% of the votes cast were voted in favor of such resolution. As to ratification the appointment of KPMG LLP as independent auditor for 2021 approximately 98.4% of the votes cast were voted in favor of such proposal. As to the stockholder proposal regarding stockholder request for a record date to initiate written consent approximately 41.3% of the votes cast were voted in favor of such proposal. That concludes my report on the voting results.
Thank you, Jim. I hereby declare that the slate of 12 directors has been elected. I hereby declare that the advisory resolution on executive compensation has been approved. I hereby declare that the appointment of KPMG LLP as the corporation's independent auditor for 2021 has been ratified. And I hereby declare that the proposal regarding stockholders' request for a record date to initiate written consent has not been approved.
I now turn the meeting back to the Chair.
Thank you, Todd. This concludes the formal business which this meeting was called. Since I am aware of no other business, I will now entertain a motion to conclude the meeting.
So moved. Is there a second? Second.
So moved and seconded. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. The 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders of the Bank of New York Mellon Corporation is hereby adjourned. Todd will now present a short business overview presentation, comment on the business of our company and take any questions you may have through the online portal.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will now present a brief business overview. Before we begin, please note that our remarks include forward looking statements and non GAAP measures. Information about these statements and measures are available in the presentation deck, which is available on the Investor Relations page of our website at www.bnymellon.com.
Now, BNY Mellon plays a critical role at the center of the global businesses across 3 key areas: Security Services, Wealth and Market Infrastructure and Investment and Wealth Management. We hold market leadership positions across our major businesses. Our asset servicing, Clearance and Claro Markets and Pershing businesses are among the top 3 service providers in their respective markets. And our Wealth and Investment Management businesses rank in the top 10 in their segments. Our breadth of services and capabilities is unrivaled among our competitors.
This allows us to create deeper client relationships and the ability to offer unique and innovative solutions. The numbers on this slide demonstrate McPNY Mellon size, scale as well as our capabilities across the world's financial infrastructure and we feel very good about our businesses as we move forward. Moving to the second slide, you can see that we're competitively differentiated by a number of characteristics. I've already talked about our scale and global footprint, but we also have one of the industry's best client rosters with connectivity and trust based relationships to the most important financial institutions in the world. We provide services to businesses across the global capital markets and clients, regulators, individuals and countless other market participants trust and rely on us to play a vital role in the smooth functioning of the financial system.
We are proud to call 97 of the top 100 banks and 93 of the top 100 investment managers worldwide our clients. And 72 percent of Fortune 500 companies trust us with their business. We form enduring client relationships and our average client has been with us for more than 30 years. That's a testament to our capabilities and exceptional client service. Now from any vantage point and by any measure 2020 was an unprecedented year.
Yet for all of its unique challenges, the year also inspired exceptional levels of innovation, collaboration and determination. Through it all, BNY Mellon adapted and adjusted to ensure we can deliver we continued to deliver on our commitments. I am so proud of how our company rose to the occasion, demonstrating again why we are a trusted steward for our clients and the global financial markets. Throughout the pandemic, we have supported our employees, clients and communities. I'm quite proud of what our 48,000 employees around the world have accomplished.
We stepped up to support each other so that our employees could support our clients. We transitioned well to a remote working environment without disruption of service to our clients. We added well-being programs such as additional mental health support, telehealth coverage and caregiver benefits, all of which enabled our employees to continue to provide clients quality service throughout. We are pleased that we were both productive and innovative in a remote environment and there will be some positive takeaways on the future of work and the pace at which we digitize operations to increase efficiencies as we go forward. In terms of clients in the financial system, we're proud to provide the infrastructure for several critical government programs for COVID-nineteen relief, including the term asset backed securities loan facility, the municipal liquidity facility, the primary dealer credit facility and the payment protection program.
In addition, given our strong capital liquidity position, we used our balance sheet to support our clients throughout this period, including by accommodating elevated deposits and in funding increased loan demand. In terms of our communities, I would be remiss if I did not touch on the impact of 2020 Beyond Business. It was a year that will forever have a profound effect on society as we consider the gravity of COVID 19 and the social justice movements around the globe. Recognizing the massive impact of the pandemic, we continue to seek ways to provide support to frontline workers and communities at large. As part of these efforts, we committed over $20,000,000 of aid to nonprofit partners across the globe to deliver relief from the pandemic and strengthen the well-being of underrepresented communities.
Our support strategically focused on bolstering public health infrastructure, providing frontline relief and social service aids to those most affected by the pandemic. We continue to execute against our strategic agenda with focus on 3 key priorities: growth, operating efficiency and culture. We're focused on growing our security servicing business and in particular our data and analytics capabilities. We will expand our presence in wealth and capital markets infrastructure as well. For example, in Clearance and Collateral Management, our new collateral platform will help market participants more efficiently mobilize their collateral and increase velocity across our platform.
In Pershing and Wealth Management, investing in wealth platforms and integrated digital tools that enhance financial advisor and client experience in this fast growth growing wealth space. And finally, we will continue to optimize our Wealth Management and Investment Management businesses. To support our growing agenda, we will continue to reengineer and digitize our processes to create scale as well as agility. We'll focus on innovating for our clients so they get enhanced client experience. We will build on our investments in resiliency, which we see as part of our core proposition to reinforce our clients' operating models.
And finally, we'll continue to focus on delivering excellence and client centricity in everything we do to support our ambitious agenda and attract and retain a driven, diverse and talented workforce. We can't talk about being a high performance culture without considering the impact we have on society. We remain committed to using our reach, market influence and resources to address pressing ESG issues. Our goals include offering our clients leading ESG solutions, empowering ESG investors globally and enabling ESG financing. We're focused on being a strong global citizen and doing responsible business by operating responsibly and sustainably, contributing to market integrity through business transparency, technological resilience and providing ESG solutions to the global investment community.
Addressing climate related risk and opportunities throughout our operations and our business activities, championing strong community and diversity and inclusion and fostering an environment where all have an opportunity to thrive. 2020 shed some much needed light on social justice and racial equality issues in our communities. We remain steadfast in our commitment to making and sustaining necessary positive change to build and strengthen a diverse, equitable and inclusion culture. For example, to drive significant positive movement and accelerate progress with respect to our most upper underrepresented ethnic talent populations and help position our firm as a competitive choice with Black and Latinx professionals, we set some concrete short term representation goals in the U. S.
In addition, we are proud to have one of the most diverse boards of directors among our peers. Our commitment to diversity and inclusion is more than just the right thing to do. It's a business imperative that leads to increased employee engagement and a proven driver of strong financial performance. Turning to financial performance. In 2020, we demonstrated resiliency during an unprecedented time.
Revenue grew despite a challenging interest rate environment. Expenses were flat and have essentially been so for the past several years. Looking at our 2020 financial performance on an adjusted basis, revenue was up 1%, that's despite the low rate environment. The low rates impacted not only net interest revenue, which was down by just over $210,000,000 year over year, but also led to almost $370,000,000 of additional money market fee waivers during the year. Expenses were flat for the year as our cost discipline and productivity gains essentially offset incremental investment.
Net income was down 6% as we recorded a provision for credit losses in light of the macroeconomic conditions. We had no net charge offs during the year. Our operating margin was solid at 30%. Our reported EPS was down at $3.83 while excluding notable items, EPS was flat at 4.01 dollars despite the impact from low interest rates and the credit provision. Return on tangible common equity was 17%.
Now we have a highly capital generative and low risk model and built approximately $5,500,000,000 of capital during the year, increasing our common equity Tier 1 ratio to 13.1 percent from 11.5%. We have strong capital and liquidity ratios and meaningful buffers that exceed regulatory requirements. We have consistently received non objections to our CCAR stress test since its inception with demonstrated capital buffers under significantly adverse scenarios, a further testament of our ability to withstand extreme stress. We delivered strong results from the 2 recent rounds of Federal Reserve stress test in June December of 2020. We seek to maintain a substantial liquidity cushion in both normal and stressed environments and the combination of a strong capital and liquidity profile and our low risk assets make us financially resilient and we're well prepared for market crisis such as what we saw this past year.
Moving on to capital returns. In 2020, share buybacks were suspended by regulatory restrictions as part of the response to the pandemic. This was to ensure that we and other large banks could use our significant capital and liquidity to provide maximum support for clients in the economy. We maintained our ordinary dividend, although regulatory restrictions meant we were unable to increase it. We do look forward to resuming share buybacks in line with regulatory guidance.
So as I close, let me leave you with a few thoughts. First of all, we feel very good about our business. We are already market leaders and we continue to invest in new capabilities that will further differentiate BNY Mellon from its peers. We have a strong business model. We are seeing good momentum and we're focused on long term growth.
And finally, our balance sheet remains strong and liquid and we continue to optimize our operating model, which will yield meaningful EPS growth over time. We are on an exciting journey as a company, one that will define BMI Mellon for years to come. I'm incredibly optimistic about our business and the contributions we will make to all of our stockholders. We will now use the remaining time this morning to take questions from stockholders submitted through our virtual meeting portal. As a reminder, stockholders may submit questions by typing your question into the submit a question field and clicking submit.
We require that you comply with the rules of conduct for this meeting available on the meeting portal. If we don't have enough time to answer questions, they may be raised separately by contacting our Investor Relations team via the contact page on our Investor Relations website. We will pause here for a moment to review the submitted questions.
Okay. Todd, we have one question regarding compensation. What is the total CEO pay for 2020 and for 2019? I
want to turn that one over to Linda.
We're going to ask that Linda Cook's line be open. Linda is the Chair of our Human Resources and Compensation Committee.
Hi. Hello. Thank you for the question. The compensation total compensation for our CEO in 2019 for Todd was $12,500,000 For 2020, it actually decreased more than 20% to $9,400,000 Thank you.
Our next question is what percent of employees work from home? How will this change in the next 3 months?
Thanks for the question. Right now, we're operating with about 7% of our employees in office and the remaining 93% or so. It varies a little bit, 1% or 2% working from home. The guidance that we have provided to our employees that we expect to remain in the state until September 1, at which time we will reevaluate the conditions and we hope to come back into the office if the efficacy of vaccines turn out to be as
Our next question, the Carpenter Union Pension Funds have a collective ownership position of 1,526,400 shares of the company's common stock. As long term investors, we believe the executive compensation plan should be designed to drive the successful execution of the company's long term strategic business plan. The Human Resources and Compensation Committee revised the performance share unit metrics for the 2021 share grant to reinforce alignment with stockholder interests. Could you or the Chair of the Compensation Committee discuss how or whether the committee considers metrics in the long term equity portion of the plan that align with interests of other company stakeholders. Thank
you. And what's Linda I think?
We'll open the line again for Linda Cook, the Chair of our Human Resources and Compensation Committee.
Great. Thank you for the question. Following engagement with shareholders and a review of peer programs, as you mentioned, the committee approved a revision to the performance share unit metrics for awards made this year, which will pay out in 2024. The performance metrics approved for the new PSU awards are return on average tangible common equity. This reflects revenue, expenses, capital efficiency and general progress against the company's strategy.
And also relative PSR is our second metric. This helps ensure that our payout reflects the experience of our shareholders and is in line with what peer companies in our sector do, all of whom have a relative metric. The committee believes the metrics support the company's strategy, reinforcing both operational performance and shareholder incentive plan also incorporates the use of individual performance modifiers for senior executives. So these include things or can include things like progress versus the diversity targets that Todd mentioned, progress versus other strategic initiatives and, for example, ESG goals, reflecting broader stakeholder considerations. And importantly, in the end, if the committee does not feel the calculated outcome reflects the experience of shareholders or stakeholders or is otherwise fair, we have the ability to use discretion.
Again, thank you for your question.
And our next question, what are your financial targets for compensation and will you publicly state these goals for shareholders? Also, how do you reconcile a relatively high 98% payout for compensation with relatively low growth and stated operating EPS OEPS from 2019 through 2020, flat or up 3% adjusted? And we're going to ask Linda Cook to answer that as well. Can you open her line?
Great. Thanks again for the other questions. So our incentive plan is designed to pay for performance and be competitive in the market. For 2020, our metric to determine incentive pay was adjusted OEPS, which reflects broad performance against across the company, including revenue and expenses. In 2020, which was for reasons everyone is familiar with a difficult year, adjusted OEPF was $4.01 just $0.01 below the 2019 performance of $4.02 in spite of the negative impacts of COVID.
OEPS was however lower than what the company had targeted, but this was mainly due to the regulatory restrictions regarding buybacks, which had a significant impact on OEPS. As Todd explained, the company's performance was resilient in the face of the pandemic. Headwinds included 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars of earnings loss related to fee waivers, extraordinary low interest rates and credit provisions. Taking everything into consideration, the calculations led to a payout of 98%. The committee decided to exercise discretion and approved a somewhat lower payout of 95%, which is below target.
Going forward, the metric for the cash bonus and restricted stock award remains OEPs as it's a reflection of broad business performance. New metrics have been introduced for our PSU awards. These are, as I mentioned earlier, our OTCE and relative total shareholder return. The actual targets have been set for all of these incentive pay metrics have been set taking into account past performance, the current business environment and the outlook and also what the committee believes to be competitive performance and aligned with shareholders. And the specific targets will be disclosed in next year's proxy as is the company's normal practice.
Thank you.
Thank you, Linda. The next question relates to climate change. How do you measure the extent of your success with your climate change initiatives?
Yes. Let me say that we look at climate and ESG broadly through 2 lenses. And by the way, we've got a couple of reports out there on this. So and they have quite a bit of detail in there. We publish each year an ESG report that will be coming out in June, our next one.
And we published in February a new report called Considering Climate at BNY Mellon. And it's got some very specific detail on our goals, what we've done, how and how we're doing, whether it's water usage, carbon footprint, waste and so forth. And the way we look at it broadly is through 2 lenses. 1 is how are we doing as an enterprise, for example, our own carbon footprint or how carbon change could pose risks to our businesses as well as through as well through a second lens and that is the solution that solutions that we provide to our clients. These include investment products, as well as data and analytics software to analyze portfolio metrics.
We're also the largest corporate trustee for green bonds, and we provide many other, similar services. In terms of the impact on climate, we're committed to addressing climate related risks. I mentioned that the reports and that we discussed the many things that we do. We've set additional actions that we are taking and goals over the next few years. And I'm proud to say that BNY Mellon is one of only 5 institutions that earned an A grade from the CDP and is the only financial institution to earn it for 8 consecutive years.
So obviously, managing the risk of climate change is critical to all of us and we intend to do our part and we've provided quite a bit of disclosure, which I would encourage you to take a look at.
Our next question is relates to revenues. What gives you confidence that organic revenue growth should accelerate from 1% to 2%? Why should this time be different?
Yes. We're pleased to see in 2020 that we did see an increase in revenues from in our organic revenue. And that's what when we talk about that, we're talking about not the impact from market or even the spike that we saw in COVID related activities, but this is the underlying organic and growth in our number of clients and in the business that we're doing in our clients. So we've become one of the top providers, if not the top provider to many of our firms. That's led us to higher retention rates and has also improved our sales from new products as we work with our clients.
So we like the momentum that we've got there. In addition, over the past few years, we've been making some investments in key initiatives that we think we're going to maintain that momentum. As I said in my remarks earlier, we're investing in the data and analytics space, which we think we've been in the space for a while, but as we've cloud enabled our capabilities, we think that's going to further our leadership position there and be a driver of future revenue growth. We've also got a leading position in clearing and collateral management. The fact that we've been able to invest in that system to really improve what it can do for our clients and the benefits that will come from our clients, we think that will gain market share there.
We're also making good headway in our wealth management business and our payments business. So I think that I'm confident that we can continue to deliver positive organic growth in the coming years.
Let me just add to that, if I may, Todd. I think it's from a Board's perspective, we're watching very carefully, the expectation of accelerated organic growth through our investment portfolio, in particular asset servicing, things such as the future of custody, ETF, all data analytics, in the payments business, frictionless services and the collateral business optimization, global interoperability and a lot of WellTech as a high growth business. So we're confident that we'll continue to see the momentum that we carry through 2020 into the next several years. Thank you for that question.
Our next question is how much was spent on share buybacks in 2020?
I'll take that one. So in 2020, we spent $989,000,000 on share buybacks, most of which was done at the beginning before the Federal Reserve put restrictions on buybacks.
Our next question is elaborate on your inflows and outflows in investments and wealth management in fixed income, equity and money market flows in 2020.
So on Page 19 of our annual report, you can see that in some detail. Our long term active strategies saw $18,000,000,000 of positive inflows and $6,000,000,000 of index flows, so $24,000,000,000 of total. Our short term cash strategies saw $49,000,000,000 of total inflows. So the total net inflows for the company in 2020 was $73,000,000,000 and they're broken down by asset class. I won't go through them here, but they're broken down by asset class in some detail on Page 19 of our annual report.
Next question. Will you mandate that your employees get the vaccine for COVID?
We're certainly encouraging our employees to get the vaccine. We haven't reached the we haven't determined exactly whether they'll be required to have the vaccine to come back into the offices yet or not, but we're certainly encouraging it.
Next question. What was the impact of 2020 on pension plans and insurance plans, your large wealth management clients?
I'm very pleased to say that from a wealth management perspective, the investment performance and the recommendations that they made was outstanding. So they outperformed the market. In fact, right when the market had probably set a bottom, our Chief Investment Officer in Wealth advised clients that this was time to rebalance, which met with an opportunity because of the downtick to put additional assets into equities. And so there was significant outperformance for our clients that followed our strategies.
Next question. Tech spend is projected to be flat in 2021. Does this suggest savings from the past are funding the future? Will tech investments allow for an expense reduction in the future?
There are so we're spending on tech for a number of different purposes. One is and Joe just elaborated on a number of revenue driven initiatives that we've got. We've also got automation initiatives that are making us more efficient and that's kind of virtuous circle. And so we think that there is more opportunity to do that. We got some dividend for that when we made the statement that we expected it to be flat after significant increases over the past few years.
But we've got opportunities for growth and we're carefully reviewing what those opportunities are and what the portfolio will look like going forward. But yes, I think we can get more and more out of our tech spend.
Okay. Next question. While the virtual annual meeting is being used because of COVID, it is a great way to encourage shareholder participation. Any plans to continue this format beyond the COVID time?
Well, we are listening to our shareholders. We're getting feedback in both directions. So we'll spend some time and we actually look forward to having the discussion and the opportunity to do an in person meeting. But at this point, and I do agree, I mean, the technology and that's been even our own productivity as a firm, it's been helpful for our productivity. So I think things have likely changed permanently, but how we adapt to that change, I think it's a little too early to call you.
That's the remaining questions. Okay.
So if So thank you for the questions. And if you have any additional questions or your question was not answered, you can reach out to our Investor Relations group through our corporate website. Thank you for attending everyone and for your interest in our company.
The conference has ended. You may disconnect your line.