Technology startups in the Greater Bay Area (GBA) are to benefit from a new US$3 billion lending fund set up by Hong Kong’s largest bank. The South China Morning Post reports that the HSBC New Economy Fund will make good CEO Noel Quinn’s pledge earlier this year to get the bank “heavily involved in tech” and “the innovation sector”.
The move follows HSBC’s purchase in March of the UK arm of the Silicon Valley Bank.
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A senior HSBC official told the Post that the New Economy Fund was “another demonstration of HSBC’s support for the innovation economy in Hong Kong and beyond”.
Analysts meanwhile greeted the fund as a positive step.
“The technology companies in the Greater China region and Asia will be the driving force of economic growth in the following years”, one Hong Kong broker said. “It makes sense for HSBC to increase lending and offer other services to these tech startups as they would be the lenders’ future big clients”.
