The afternoon sessions of Money20/20 commenced with a fireside chat featuring Ian Stuart, CEO of HSBC UK, and Arjun Kharpal, a senior technology reporter at CNBC. They delved into HSBC’s acquisition of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and discussed future prospects.
As many attendees were eager for updates on SVB’s status, Stuart shared that the bank is focused on “migrating SVB off of the US systems and bringing it onto the UK system.” He acknowledged the urgency of the task, stating, “We’ve had a very limited time to be able to do that, so it has been quite frenzied to try and get that done.” While he noted that they are “not quite there yet,” he expressed optimism about their progress.
HSBC took over the UK arm of SVB in March 2023, an event that was unplanned yet successfully executed. Stuart remarked, “That’s the big thing. So suddenly you’re trying to get enough resources to do this.”
Given HSBC’s cautious reputation in contrast to SVB’s focus on startups, Kharpal questioned whether HSBC was the appropriate choice for this acquisition. In response, Stuart asserted that they were confident about the decision at the time of signing the documents. “Our challenge over the next few years is to prove that we are the right bank for this. I can assure you SVB is a very good bank in the UK. We did our due diligence and believe we have very talented people.”
Stuart emphasized that SVB will continue to operate as a standalone entity, stating, “That is the most important thing. We want to keep the magic that’s there, we want to sustain that. From there, we want to add our product suite and expertise so that you can move from Series A seed funding all the way to IPO without having to go outside that bank.”
Once the systems are integrated, HSBC plans to “start to build that out and then very quickly take it global.” He countered skeptics who claim HSBC does not belong in this market, stating that acquiring SVB will accelerate their expansion efforts.
He added, “We’ve got a really nice commercial bank in the US. We’re going to try and link the US into the UK, then into the Middle East, which has a significant presence. It’s a very active market at the moment, and then into Asia.” Stuart urged attendees not to “doubt the ambition in HSBC to make that work… We are going to protect what SVB had.”