Bank of England puts UK arm of Silicon Valley Bank into resolution

The Bank of England has moved to put the UK arm of Silicon Valley Bank into resolution after it applied for £1.8bn of liquidity as its parent company was collapsing on Friday.

The BoE said in a late-night statement that it plans to use its bank insolvency procedure which allows depositors to be paid up to £85,000 as quickly as possible from the deposit insurance scheme. Liquidators will manage the remaining British assets and distribute them to creditors, including large depositors.

Financial advisory firm Interpath has been lined up as the likely administrator for the insolvency, according to two people familiar with the matter. Interpath declined to comment.

“SVB UK has a limited presence in the UK and no critical functions supporting the financial system,” the BoE said, after US regulators took over the American parent company on Friday. It added that the firm would stop making payments or accepting deposits.

The decision to call time on SVB UK was taken after the bank applied to the BoE’s discount window, which offers short-term funding to banks, for £1.8bn on Friday.

A spokesman for SVB’s UK arm had no immediate comment.

On Friday afternoon, SVB UK posted a statement on Twitter stressing that it was a “standalone independent banking institution”. 

“We appreciate that this is a concerning time for our clients so we are working tirelessly to support them and give more context,” Erin Platts, chief executive and head of SVB UK, said in a statement. The tweet has since been removed.

Created in 2012 as SVB’s first overseas branch, the UK arm became a subsidiary last August. It boasted a team of 700 people across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, according to a tweet from the UK bank’s official account at an awards ceremony last week.

Additional reporting by Michael O’Dwyer and Brooke Masters in New York