Silicon Valley Bank UK will continue to assist startups from “seed funding to IPO,” according to the CEO of its new owner, HSBC UK, on Tuesday.
“We’re going to protect what we’ve got,” Ian Stuart said to Arjun Kharpal of CNBC at the Money20/20 fintech conference in Amsterdam.
“We’re going to keep it ringfenced within our own ringfenced bank, it’ll have its own board, its own risk policies, and we’ll protect what it has today.”
After Silicon Valley Bank’s parent firm in the United States failed, HSBC UK purchased the London-based subsidiary for £1 ($1.21) in March. Despite the fact that the bank did not have a large client base in the United Kingdom, hundreds of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists believed the bank’s failure would be extremely detrimental to the IT sector, and the government stepped in to broker a transaction over the course of a weekend.
Some have voiced worry that HSBC, a traditional banking institution, may not be able to continue financing the type of tech-focused startups and small companies that Silicon Valley Bank UK used to specialize in.
Stuart, on the other hand, stated that the bank sought to reassure consumers that this would not be the case.
“Our plan is that we’ll take it from seed funding all the way through to IPO, and customers will never have to go outside of that network to meet their funding requirements,” he added, adding HSBC goods and services.
Stuart stated that they hoped to take the business worldwide after relocating back-end systems and procedures from the United States and relaunching under a yet-to-be-announced moniker — which insiders have informed Sky News would be HSBC Innovation Banking.
“We want to be global very quickly, establishing infrastructure in the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel, the Middle East, and Asia.” So it’s a really extensive approach,” he explained.
