British banking giant HSBC has officially launched a revamped version of Silicon Valley Bank UK.
After weeks of teasing an innovation-focused version of SVB UK — which HSBC purchased following the collapse of parent company Silicon Valley Bank — the lender announced in a press release Monday (June 12) the arrival of a new business dubbed HSBC Innovation Banking.
The release, timed to coincide with London Tech Week, comes as the U.K. tries to position itself as a center for technological innovation.
“The U.K.’s world-leading technology and life sciences sectors are central to growing the U.K. economy and boosting global exports,” said HSBC Group CEO Noel Quinn in the release. “HSBC now has a world-class team focused on innovation companies, their founders and their investors. We will protect this specialism and take it to the next level by combining these capabilities with our financial strength and global reach.”
The release also quoted Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who said the new bank will support his “priority to grow the U.K. economy and cement our position as a science and tech superpower.”
Sunak was expected to speak during Tech Week, addressing the idea that the “tectonic plates of technology are shifting.”
HSBC acquired SVB UK for a single British pound in March after the downfall of SVB’s parent company, which led to a global banking crisis.
Since then, executives have tried to reassure investors they had no plans to change how SVB UK was run, with many investors expressing concerns that the banks were something of a mismatch: the traditional lender HSBC and the more tech-focused SVB.
For example, James Hickson, founder and CEO at European revenue-based lender Bloom, said in a March interview with PYMNTS that HSBC represented “a good safe-haven for depositors,” but added: “A challenge they’ve got is to ensure that the culture does not get destroyed in the process and that all the factors that made SVB successful, including its ties to the [venture capital (VC)] community, are not lost.”
Last week, Ian Stuart, CEO of HSBC UK Bank, said HSBC Innovation would retain SVB UK’s startup-friendly focus.
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