Speaker 1: I'm David Merritt and I'm Francine Lakwaw and.
Speaker 2: This is in the City, Bloomberg's podcast, connecting you to
Speaker 2: the Conversations a part of the City.
Speaker 1: Of London, and this week, Dave, we talk London Tech.
Speaker 2: That's right, it is London Tech Week and we have
Speaker 2: both been down there at Westminster. I was there on
Speaker 2: day one. I think you've just got back.
Speaker 1: I just got back day two. So on the first
Speaker 1: day when you were there, and then you have the
Speaker 1: Prime Minister yep, pretty soon she was around the block.
Speaker 1: I heard it was quite difficult. I actually could.
Speaker 2: Actually we managed to producer. Producer managed to sort of
Speaker 2: slip me around. I actually had a cue barge. They
Speaker 2: were having to hand out water because it was so hot,
Speaker 2: so it was slightly chaotic in there, the big crowd,
Speaker 2: so Rishi Sunac and then I met with the Mayor
Speaker 2: of London City Khan afterwards as well. And also part
Speaker 2: of the event's kickoff was the announcement of HSBC relaunching
Speaker 2: the recently acquired ukr SVB, which has now rebranded itself
Speaker 2: as HSBC Innovation Banking, and later in this episode, on
Speaker 2: my conversation with the group's boss erin Klattz.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then the next day they had the opposition leader
Speaker 1: Cures Darman. He laid out i think for one of
Speaker 1: the first times, actually his vision for a labor government
Speaker 1: on how they deal with AI, how they regulate, and
Speaker 1: how they incentivize tech companies solicit here.
Speaker 4: There's going to have to be an overarching regulatory framework
Speaker 4: of some sort. The government's talking about principles in legislation,
Speaker 4: which then find themselves in each of the sectors. I
Speaker 4: think we're going to have something stronger than that. I
Speaker 4: think foundation AI needs regulation as well, and that requires
Speaker 4: international leadership as well as leadership here, but also working
Speaker 4: with businesses, because you need a government that's on the pitch,
Speaker 4: working with business to say, if there are to be
Speaker 4: changes in jobs. Let's say there are job losses, what
Speaker 4: are we going to do about the workforce.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And of course you gave a profit grilling on stage.
Speaker 1: He could have had more policy, yeah, but actually his
Speaker 1: overarching theme was definitely, look, let's treat tech like an
Speaker 1: industrial plan.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And listening to Sunac, I mean you could, I mean
Speaker 2: he was clearly making the case that London is this
Speaker 2: kind of buzzing capital for tech. You know, we're going
Speaker 2: to try and sort of peel back the layers of
Speaker 2: reality on that. So we've got in the room with
Speaker 2: this now in the podcast studio with us now we
Speaker 2: have of fintech reports at Aisha Ghani iic, you've also
Speaker 2: been at tech Week this week. What is your impression
Speaker 2: is all that hype for real?
Speaker 5: Well, it's also worth mentioning that at the same time
Speaker 5: as UK Tech Week, we've also had Viva Tech in
Speaker 5: Paris right at the same time, at the same time,
Speaker 5: and they've.
Speaker 2: Flowed didn't mention that, did they?
Speaker 5: I mean they've flown in Elon Musk. I've got their
Speaker 5: CEO of sales force. Meanwhile, we're having a lot of
Speaker 5: policy discussions here. So I think you can see the
Speaker 5: kind of contrast.
Speaker 2: And so must decided to get to Paris not London.
Speaker 1: Was he invited to London? This is a question is
Speaker 1: it just a bigger It feels like a bigger event
Speaker 1: in Paris because they've been doing it for quite some time,
Speaker 1: and I think London Tech Week started three or four
Speaker 1: years ago.
Speaker 2: They said that next year they're going to move to Olympia,
Speaker 2: much bigger. There's going to be lots. I mean, we
Speaker 2: were trying to organize some of the interviews and it
Speaker 2: was just chaotic getting up and down into the floors.
Speaker 2: There's no space for the cameras that and it's clearly
Speaker 2: completely outgrown that space. So it's going to be bigger
Speaker 2: and better next year. But we're kind of playing catch
Speaker 2: up with the French, right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I'd love to see the lineup next year.
Speaker 5: And we have other similar conferences. I went to IFGS
Speaker 5: Innovate Finances Global Summer earlier this year and like the
Speaker 5: headline speaker again was like the Economic Secretary. He basically
Speaker 5: was telling founders that we are a sovereign nation, we
Speaker 5: dealt with sbb UK, get on with it, which I
Speaker 5: thought was quite intriguing. So there's definitely a lot more
Speaker 5: like policy focus.
Speaker 1: So if you look at the UK, are they trying
Speaker 1: to get more funding than France? I mean again, France
Speaker 1: has a lot of billionaires and telecoms that have put
Speaker 1: a lot of weight behind it. Or is the UK
Speaker 1: trying to regulate AI and really become a tech hub
Speaker 1: to rival to look value.
Speaker 5: I don't think anyone could deny that the UK has
Speaker 5: slipped behind. And there are competing hubs and there are
Speaker 5: other exciting places it's changed from the last few years.
Speaker 5: So it's about I think there's a lot of it
Speaker 5: is about confidence as well. Everyone I speak to mentions
Speaker 5: political instability. They're kind of seeing where the chips will fall,
Speaker 5: so they're kind of holding on at the moment. I mean,
Speaker 5: we've seen really high profile CEOs and founders talking about
Speaker 5: their frustration with the UK at the moment, the revolute
Speaker 5: founders being the ones that come to mind, saying how
Speaker 5: the red tape has been so frustrating, dealing with months
Speaker 5: and months of delays with regards to their emails regarding
Speaker 5: their UK banking license. So that kind of gives the
Speaker 5: flavor of the sort of things that they're having to
Speaker 5: deal with at a granular level.
Speaker 2: So one of the things that the Prime Minister said
Speaker 2: was that Britain's biggest problem is less the kind of
Speaker 2: capacity of this economy create tech companies, but more just
Speaker 2: the confidence to sort of celebrate it.
Speaker 3: The government can do all these things, but fundamentally it
Speaker 3: requires the entrepreneurs to just keep going. To be not
Speaker 3: content with building one hundred million pound business and then
Speaker 3: the billion pound business, but just to keep growing and
Speaker 3: that I found in California is very much the attitude.
Speaker 3: It's just the sky is the limit. Everyone thinks they
Speaker 3: can create a one hundred billion dollar company and actually,
Speaker 3: you know, changing that culture is tough for government to do.
Speaker 3: But I don't know what you think about that.
Speaker 2: Do you agree with that? Is it just about sort
Speaker 2: of the swagger or the ambition?
Speaker 5: Oh, that has so much to do with it. I
Speaker 5: recently caught up with Tom Blomfield. He was a co
Speaker 5: founder of Monzo, one of UK's unicorns, and he's now
Speaker 5: moved to sunny California as a partner at y Combinator,
Speaker 5: the Accelerator, and this is exactly the point he made.
Speaker 5: He's on the streets of San Francisco and he's seeing
Speaker 5: Driverller's cars and people are people's startups are totally AI
Speaker 5: driven And he said, like the comparison ten years going
Speaker 5: in London was that it was really difficult for him
Speaker 5: as a founder to raise any money.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it was interesting, isn't it. I was sat
Speaker 2: there listening to the Prime Minister to talk and about
Speaker 2: Britain as this hub and his focus on cutting regulation
Speaker 2: and making it easier for people to come in on
Speaker 2: visas and the reality of what we hear from executives
Speaker 2: is very different. And then this political instability question because
Speaker 2: of course when he took questions from the media, what
Speaker 2: came up, well, it was the weekend of headlines about
Speaker 2: Boris Johnson and the honors list and that controversy, and
Speaker 2: that was what made the news from the summit was
Speaker 2: his response to now you know, the war of the
Speaker 2: supposed war of words with Johnson. So yet again he
Speaker 2: goes down the kind of rabbit hole of politics rather
Speaker 2: than actually pushing forward with policy. And you can sort
Speaker 2: of sense the frustration from the company's present. They want
Speaker 2: to hear about what we're doing to kind of promote
Speaker 2: business rather than getting sucked into the Tory psychodrama that
Speaker 2: we've been in the last few years.
Speaker 5: Also, I mean, I look at it, I kind of
Speaker 5: put myself in a founder's shoes, and if you're just
Speaker 5: starting out right now, you need to be hiring the
Speaker 5: top talent, you need to secure the R and D
Speaker 5: tax credit, you need to deal with licensing. How do
Speaker 5: you get that through when they're regulators dealing with a backlog.
Speaker 5: Those are the kind of questions that founders are raising,
Speaker 5: and some of these founders, you know, they are obsessed
Speaker 5: with looking at these headlines and trade deals for example,
Speaker 5: and they thought maybe they'll be like a little bit
Speaker 5: of hope there.
Speaker 2: Which is to make things easier with the EU, because.
Speaker 5: They were saying for months and months, well for years,
Speaker 5: it seems as though we can't even speak about Rexit.
Speaker 2: And one of the big problems is obviously as everyone
Speaker 2: said about visas. And you know we've heard Sunak saying
Speaker 2: that the system is perfect. But the Mayor of London
Speaker 2: so did it calm when he spoke to me, said
Speaker 2: there's still a lot of work to do to ensure
Speaker 2: that we can attract the right sort of talent.
Speaker 6: We can't be complacent and we've going to recognize is yes,
Speaker 6: it's wonderful. Some of the world's best companies choose to
Speaker 6: London as the European headquarters. They expand in a London.
Speaker 6: But we've got to recognize an out doorstep is a
Speaker 6: market more than five hundred million people. The European Union,
Speaker 6: even the prime ministers are recognizes you can't turn your
Speaker 6: back on the European Union. So I welcome the fact
Speaker 6: that prominence is here today, the Chancelly is here today.
Speaker 6: So the good news to those watching this from overseas
Speaker 6: is you've got a government that understands some of these issues.
Speaker 6: The only problem is that prominence is too weak to
Speaker 6: take them on and address them.
Speaker 1: But I think that is the concern that First, there
Speaker 1: is a skill shortage, so if you're a founder, you
Speaker 1: don't necessarily know if you find the right people to
Speaker 1: come in and fulfill the jobs that you need them to.
Speaker 1: And then second, because the Tories are doing so badly
Speaker 1: in the polls, are they just wanting to know more
Speaker 1: about what labor government would look like and we're still
Speaker 1: thin on details. I don't know whether because the election
Speaker 1: is still like sixteen seventeen months away or because they
Speaker 1: haven't really of framework on it yet.
Speaker 5: I think it's both. But their immediate concern is we
Speaker 5: can't hire the best talent. What are we meant to do?
Speaker 5: How we even meant to progress as a company. One
Speaker 5: founder I spoke to he was really frustrated and he
Speaker 5: said the government needs to wake up. He's spent upwards
Speaker 5: of like ten k trying to hire top engineers from
Speaker 5: Europe and wait, no exactly and has already been waiting.
Speaker 2: Much This has come up so many times I said,
Speaker 2: I mean and again keep going back to this sort
Speaker 2: of distance between the reality and what's soon. Ac said
Speaker 2: on stage, he said, We've got this fantastic visa system
Speaker 2: now to bring in talent.
Speaker 3: Whether it's the new scale up visa that I introduced
Speaker 3: as Chancellor for companies who are scaling up to able
Speaker 3: to get the talent they need, whether it's our Innovative
Speaker 3: Founder visa, which is globally extremely competitive, or the High
Speaker 3: Potential Individual visa that I created, which essentially says, if
Speaker 3: you graduated from a global top fifty university, just come
Speaker 3: to the UK. You don't need a job offer. We
Speaker 3: just want to make sure that you can speak English
Speaker 3: and that you have a certain amount of money to
Speaker 3: support yourself. Otherwise, we want you here because we think
Speaker 3: it will be additive to our economy. That's a massive
Speaker 3: We're open for business sign to the world's most talented,
Speaker 3: and I think that's important.
Speaker 2: No one seemed to have heard of that as well,
Speaker 2: So no one knows about these schemes, and the ones
Speaker 2: that are in place seem to be not fit for
Speaker 2: purpose at least in terms of what the founders need
Speaker 2: and want. And yet the prime Minister doesn't agree exactly.
Speaker 5: I'm going to get a bit nerdy here, but like,
Speaker 5: of course, we know that the government pulled back their
Speaker 5: funding of TechNation, which dealt with a lot of these
Speaker 5: global tech visas, and then we had a bit of
Speaker 5: stalemach because we didn't know who would be responsible in
Speaker 5: issuing these tech visas anymore. So that happened earlier this year.
Speaker 2: So I show what is your outlook for Lumber's tech scene.
Speaker 5: I mean, London is not dead, that's key, and I
Speaker 5: do think we need to just be a bit more
Speaker 5: measured and I think some of it is a bit
Speaker 5: scare mongering, but at the same time we have to
Speaker 5: recognize that it is just becoming more difficult and there's
Speaker 5: real competition, and you have people like Macron literally rolling
Speaker 5: out the red carpet for founders to be at their
Speaker 5: Eliz Palace and then you've got these founders, they have
Speaker 5: photos with him and they go to US investors. And
Speaker 5: then on the other side, when the US investors come
Speaker 5: to the UK and ask founders, well, how are you
Speaker 5: going to grow, where are you going to expand what's
Speaker 5: your passporting like have you got a foot in Europe?
Speaker 5: And they can't really respond then obviously there are challenges.
Speaker 5: There are real bureaucratic challenges that I think it totally
Speaker 5: depends on where you are in the ecosystem.
Speaker 1: But does that matter. We're going to regulate AI worldwide.
Speaker 1: The UK is.
Speaker 2: That's the big pitch at the moment, right, that Britain's
Speaker 2: going to take some role. And you know, saying this
Speaker 2: with the deep mind guy there who reports say, actually
Speaker 2: spending increasing amounts of time in the United States, right,
Speaker 2: rather than but putting that aside, cam Briton really be
Speaker 2: a leader kind of marshaling all of the different arms
Speaker 2: races that are going on an AI around the world.
Speaker 2: It feels like that stretch incredibility.
Speaker 5: We're already playing catch up though that Europe and the
Speaker 5: US have been having these conversations for a while. They've
Speaker 5: already joined up in terms of research with regards to
Speaker 5: AI and the public good. They've already been discussing at meetings.
Speaker 5: I mean, the UK wants to host this global summit
Speaker 5: when in the autumn, and it's a bit late.
Speaker 1: I should thank you so much, thank you, Dave. The
Speaker 1: other questions, of course, how do you get funding? So
Speaker 1: you need a strong bank that will lend to some
Speaker 1: of these startups. And you had a great conversation with
Speaker 1: the newly minted chief executive of the former SVB UK.
Speaker 2: That's right. Erin Platt used to run SVB UK. Remember
Speaker 2: the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. That unit was brought
Speaker 2: by HSBC for a pound was rescued. She is now
Speaker 2: the CEO of the newly minted HSBC Innovation Banking and
Speaker 2: they announced the new name for that unit at Tech
Speaker 2: Week yesterday. She stood up and asked the first question
Speaker 2: to Rishis. Soon that she came into Bloomberg and we
Speaker 2: sat down and talked I think the question. Remember when
Speaker 2: we did the podcast around the claps so SVB we
Speaker 2: talked about what it would mean for the startup scene
Speaker 2: in the UK. Would that kind of ecosystem collapse? What
Speaker 2: would HSBC even be able to replicate that kind of
Speaker 2: culture because it comes from a very different sort of
Speaker 2: place that SVP did. We're very delighted to have Erin
Speaker 2: plattz the chief executive of the newly minted HSBC Innovation
Speaker 2: Banking UK. Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 7: Erin, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2: Can we believe the hype of London tech week. Yeah.
Speaker 7: So I've been here now for over a decade and
Speaker 7: a half working with innovation businesses, so tech companies, life sciences,
Speaker 7: whether that be early stage startups, late stage public and
Speaker 7: private corporates, and it is astonishing to see how far
Speaker 7: we've come in the next in the last decade and
Speaker 7: a half. And I do think that we are at
Speaker 7: a really pivotal moment. The market, of course, is a
Speaker 7: lot different than it was in twenty twenty one and
Speaker 7: twenty twenty two. There is some I would say systemic
Speaker 7: change is happening. Raising money is harder, the public markets
Speaker 7: remain closed, inflation remains sticky, so there's a lot to
Speaker 7: contend with. But if you take a step back and
Speaker 7: you look at the foundations that the UK has in
Speaker 7: terms of innovation, I'm really optimistic.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 7: We've got great universities, we've got fantastic talent, we've got
Speaker 7: largely friendly regulation. We're closer than we've ever been to
Speaker 7: unlocking pension capital. I think we're a hub right still.
Speaker 7: For the US to come in and Andresen horowitz announcement
Speaker 7: that their first international office is in London is a big,
Speaker 7: big deal. So you put all of that together, yes,
Speaker 7: the macro economic situation remains difficult. The innovation economy backdrop
Speaker 7: is challenging the pockets, but for me, the next five
Speaker 7: to ten years will be hugely exciting.
Speaker 2: When SVB was bought SBBUK has brought HSBC. One of
Speaker 2: the questions we asked, in fact we talked about it
Speaker 2: on this podcast back at the time, was will there
Speaker 2: be some sort of cultural loss there?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: SVB was kind of funky, right, people talked about the parties.
Speaker 2: It was a bit of a badge of honor if
Speaker 2: you were a founder to have an SVB account. Do
Speaker 2: you think HSBC Innovation Banking is going to step into
Speaker 2: that place easily that was vacated by SBB and be
Speaker 2: the bank of choice for startups in Britain.
Speaker 7: Taking a step back, So what's changed and what hasn't changed?
Speaker 7: I think that's a really important perspective to keep front
Speaker 7: of mind. So our name has changed, and actually we
Speaker 7: spent a huge amount of time with a community, speaking
Speaker 7: to entrepreneurs at every stage, speaking to investors, and not
Speaker 7: just in the UK, but in the US and Israel
Speaker 7: on the continent to make sure that this new brand
Speaker 7: name would resonate and what we found is actually the
Speaker 7: client base was really very happy to have HSBC feature
Speaker 7: front and center. It's been a tremendous three months in
Speaker 7: the banking sector and HSBC has always been a stalwart
Speaker 7: of strength, right, plus than the innovation component we need
Speaker 7: to retain and again what hasn't changed, Well, we're really
Speaker 7: fortunate that our whole entire sub UK team has remained together,
Speaker 7: continuing to service our clients in the same ways before
Speaker 7: those relationships, continuity, consistency and market so they're working with
Speaker 7: the same people, you know, same mobile phone numbers, right,
Speaker 7: So that feels really really familiar. But then I think
Speaker 7: the trick is, and what we're working really hard to
Speaker 7: do is how do we keep what was great about
Speaker 7: svb UK and then bring together what's great about HSBC
Speaker 7: the breadth of the platform, the sophistication of the products,
Speaker 7: the global reach. So we need to continue you do,
Speaker 7: work really really hard to make sure that we're showing
Speaker 7: up externally in the same way. But the feedback, you know,
Speaker 7: will be led by the feedback from our clients. And
Speaker 7: it's been great and we've seen more demand actually in
Speaker 7: the last ninety days than I expected.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was it was certainly there was, as I said,
Speaker 2: a real buzz in the room there. I just wanted
Speaker 2: to sort of sense check there a little bit more
Speaker 2: as well. You talk to a lot of these founders
Speaker 2: and you know, one of the things is the relationships
Speaker 2: you've got with everybody. Publicly, a lot of the more
Speaker 2: prominent founders and entrepreneurs have been pretty critical about the
Speaker 2: state of the market in Britain. For many reasons, companies
Speaker 2: and startups don't want to list their shares in London
Speaker 2: and increasing and looking overseas. I mean, just is it
Speaker 2: really is the hype that we saw yesterday? Is it
Speaker 2: for real? Or really? Has Britain got some structural problems
Speaker 2: that are making it harder for people to found and
Speaker 2: grow businesses here.
Speaker 7: When I take a step back and I think about
Speaker 7: the UK, right, we are still the third largest innovation
Speaker 7: economy in the world. Fintech continues to be world class,
Speaker 7: world leading here and in London. There's a lot to
Speaker 7: be proud of and there is a lot to do
Speaker 7: to continue to make this a top innovation destination and
Speaker 7: hopefully continue to climb the ranks. You are absolutely right
Speaker 7: the reforms needed to make the London Stock Exchange competitive
Speaker 7: with the US markets. We are on that journey and
Speaker 7: we're not remotely done. And I know Julia Hugget is
Speaker 7: a huge proponent of trying to drive change and really
Speaker 7: listen to entrepreneurs and investors to figure out what do
Speaker 7: we need to do to make the London change.
Speaker 2: On the you mentioned pension funds.
Speaker 7: On liquidity, there's culture, there's media, there's I mean a
Speaker 7: ton to unpick and I think with that, it's you know,
Speaker 7: are we going to see the London Stock Exchange be
Speaker 7: as competitive with the US markets in the next twelve month?
Speaker 7: It's probably not.
Speaker 2: Let's be realistic.
Speaker 7: Yeah, okay, I agree. No, should we continue to aspire
Speaker 7: and drive change over the next three to five years. Absolutely,
Speaker 7: I'm really thoughtful. As an ecosystem, let's not perpetuate historic
Speaker 7: perhaps challenges. You know, we often hear, well, you know,
Speaker 7: the ambition here isn't isn't as big as the US.
Speaker 7: I do not buy into that at all.
Speaker 2: Think says we're talking ourselves.
Speaker 3: Down a bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we have.
Speaker 7: We are creating global category leaders in almost every single
Speaker 7: sub sector. Let's celebrate that. I'm not saying it's perfect,
Speaker 7: but there is a lot to be proud of.
Speaker 2: What's the toughest challenge for these startups or is it
Speaker 2: interest rates? Is it raising capital? Is it getting the
Speaker 2: talent to come or to find the talent around the world.
Speaker 2: What's the biggest hurdle to success.
Speaker 7: I think there's often there's kind of top three challenges
Speaker 7: that regardless of the year they start, they switch ranking,
Speaker 7: but it's always access to capital, access to talent, and
Speaker 7: access to customers, usually on an international basis. And again
Speaker 7: this year, access to capital has really stayed number one.
Speaker 7: As venture capital and private equity funds are there's still
Speaker 7: a lot of price discovery going on as LPs are
Speaker 7: looking at their allocations in this asset class. I think
Speaker 7: fundraising is going to continue to be difficult for the
Speaker 7: next probably twelve months plus. That's not to say that
Speaker 7: money is not flowing. That's not to say that incredible
Speaker 7: companies aren't raising money, but it's just it's tough. It's
Speaker 7: tough out there, so I think that's still number one.
Speaker 7: Access to talent is always an issue, and there's a
Speaker 7: really interesting discussions thinking about the skills and talent that
Speaker 7: we need to foster here to be relevant for the
Speaker 7: next five to ten years. As the types of companies
Speaker 7: that are being started in scale tiers is evolving.
Speaker 2: Just looking at the rest of Europe. You've got base,
Speaker 2: you've got staff here in the UK and in the
Speaker 2: Nordic region. Yes, not currently in continental Europe? Is that
Speaker 2: going to change? I mean we are obsessed on this
Speaker 2: podcast about the rise of Paris, for instance, as a
Speaker 2: financial rival to London and post Brexit, how financial services
Speaker 2: are being distributed around the rest of the EU. And
Speaker 2: you can say the same for some tech investment as well, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, are you looking at places like Paris or Berlin? Yeah?
Speaker 4: So you know.
Speaker 7: Noel Quinn, the group CEO, has been really clear he
Speaker 7: wants to take this business and brand global. The ambition
Speaker 7: is where are there are pockets of innovation, capital and talent.
Speaker 7: We really want to be serving our clients there right
Speaker 7: wherever there's pull into these ecosystems. In the previous company,
Speaker 7: I was running all of UK and EMIA. We had
Speaker 7: offices dotted around Europe and there's a lot of amazing activity.
Speaker 7: So we're looking at that really closely with the leaders
Speaker 7: that cover those geographies and I wouldn't be surprised over
Speaker 7: time if we If you see HSBC Innovation Banking expanding there.
Speaker 2: So it's a growth story for HSBC Innovation Banking. And
Speaker 2: you know, looking back at the last few months, do
Speaker 2: you think this kind of matter? I mean, obviously you
Speaker 2: anyone could have foreseen this a year ago with VB.
Speaker 2: But going back to what you said at the beginning
Speaker 2: about merging that kind of entrepreneurial, that nimbleness, that that
Speaker 2: culture of supporting smaller companies with the with the heft
Speaker 2: of HSBC, does this set you up for more growth
Speaker 2: than perhaps under the previous culture?
Speaker 7: You know, I yeah, I think so actually, And it's
Speaker 7: I'm pausing because it's having been with the previous company
Speaker 7: for almost twenty years. You know, you don't you know,
Speaker 7: you don't. A didn't expect this to happen, but B
Speaker 7: didn't expect it to land in such a positive place,
Speaker 7: if I'm you know, being honest. But since the since
Speaker 7: the Monday post acquisition, and you know, we've been really,
Speaker 7: really fortunate. And we had a town hall on the
Speaker 7: Tuesday in March and one of the messages I gave
Speaker 7: to my team and it's more true today than it
Speaker 7: was even then, is Listen, we had a vision to
Speaker 7: support innovation businesses across the continent, full transactional banking capabilities,
Speaker 7: full private banking, wealth capabilities, full investment banking capabilities, everywhere
Speaker 7: they wanted to go. But it was going to take
Speaker 7: us like five to seven years to build that out
Speaker 7: from the ground up. In the old SVB UK business,
Speaker 7: HSBC has all of those capabilities, they have huge depth.
Speaker 2: So what I said to.
Speaker 7: The team on that Tuesday morning is we did not
Speaker 7: expect to get here in this way, but our twenty
Speaker 7: thirty strategy just arrived. So there's a lot to be
Speaker 7: optimistic about. No, it's going to be continue to be
Speaker 7: hard work to build out the proposition, to make sure
Speaker 7: it's exactly what our founders and entreprens need at every
Speaker 7: stage of growth and every subsector. But it is, you know,
Speaker 7: there's a clear path to building what is I think
Speaker 7: the most unique platform now for innovation businesses in the world.
Speaker 2: Aaron Platz, thank you so much, Thank you thanks for
Speaker 2: listening to this week's in the City. We will be
Speaker 2: back next.
Speaker 1: Week, but in the meantime, if you like our show,
Speaker 1: please head on over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to podcasts and rate, review and subscribe.
Speaker 2: This episode was hosted by Me David.
Speaker 1: Merritt and Me Francinlakwa.
Speaker 2: It was produced by Samasati and Moses.
Speaker 1: Andam additional editing by Blake Maples. Special thanks to Aisha Gani,
Speaker 1: Aaron Platts, and Sylvia Klamaki.