Proactive Investors - HSBC has sought to reassure Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) UK’s customers that their deposits are safe as firms weigh up whether they should stick with the bank after it rescued SVB UK in a last-minute deal or instead take their business to high street banks.
HSBC bought the UK arm of failed bank SVB for a symbolic £1 on Monday.
The Canary-Wharf-based bank on Tuesday wrote to SVB’s customers, providing assurances it had injected almost £2bln of additional liquidity into the bank and it was “ready to deploy more cash and liquidity as needed.”
Some firms have questioned if HSBC is the right fit for the start-up-focused bank SVB.
A number of tech firms and venture capital businesses contacted by the Evening Standard said they planned to continue banking with SVB in the short term following the collapse of its US parent company.
However, they noted that they had seen “a marked increase” in the availability of attractive alternatives as high street banks have taken a more pragmatic, start-up-friendly approach in the past few days in a bid to lure SVB customers away from HSBC.