State Street provides financial services to institutional investors such as asset managers, insurance companies, wealth managers, pension plans, central banks and other official institutions. It operates through State Street Bank and Trust Company, a trust or custody bank, which holds and services assets for clients. It operates in more than 100 geographic markets and had approximately 52,000 employees at the end of 2025.
It has two lines of business. Investment Servicing handles custody (safekeeping of assets), fund accounting and administration, record keeping, foreign exchange and securities finance, and technology such as State Street Alpha and the Charles River platform. At the end of 2025 it serviced approximately $53.80 trillion of client assets under custody or administration. Investment Management, through State Street Investment Management, runs ETFs, index funds and actively managed funds, and had approximately $5.67 trillion in assets under management.
Fee revenue is a significant majority of State Street's revenue, so it depends on how much investing activity its clients do. Its competitors include other custodian banks, investment management firms, brokers, technology companies and data providers.