HSBC to hire 50 bankers for startup lending

HSBC is planning to recruit about 50 more bankers in its U.S. commercial bank to lend to startup companies, mainly in the technology and healthcare sectors, according to a senior executive.

The London-headquartered bank hired about 40 people from Silicon Valley Bank after the latter lender failed a year ago. The innovation banking business at HSBC now stands at about 60 employees and is focused on serving early- and mid-stage companies.

“There’s this void in the market and we’re jumping into it,” Wyatt Crowell, head of commercial banking at HSBC, told Reuters in an interview. “It’s gone way better than I thought it was going to go, both in terms of the volume of deals and our win rate on the deals.”