HSBC, with big operations in the UK and France as well as a presence on the ground in 20 markets across Europe, wins the award for the region’s best bank for small and medium-sized enterprises this year, against strong challenges from UniCredit and Santander.
In March 2021, HSBC launched a record £15 billion loan fund to finance recovery for UK businesses. Peter McIntyre, head of small business banking at HSBC UK, says: “We were quick to react to the introduction of the government loan schemes to support businesses, lending more than £15 billion and granting 18,000 capital repayment holidays to our customers when they needed it most. We worked hard to be accessible, opening over 71,000 accounts for non-customers, enabling access to the Bounce Back Loan scheme.”
That was unusual. Most banks struggled to cope with requests from existing customers and lacked capacity to onboard new ones.
Fintechs are renowned for their agility but HSBC’s people, inspired by chief executive Noel Quinn, showed their adaptability. “For example, call centre colleagues and business specialists across the UK swiftly adjusted from their regular duties to providing additional support to businesses who were not digitally enabled,” says McIntyre.
The pandemic has accelerated the rollout of digital banking for SMEs, which, McIntyre believes, want the innovations that come from digital banks provided by the established brands with financial strength.
Its HSBC Kinetic app was created with insights from 3,000 small businesses and allows applications and ID checks within 15 minutes and full onboarding within 48 hours, in a segment where three weeks or longer is normal. It allows businesses to apply for current accounts, credit cards and overdrafts within the app, it also enables mobile cheque deposits and international payments, and provides spend categorization that improves cash flow insights.
HSBC took an early decision with Kinetic that it should be useful for companies ranging from new startups to larger established SMEs all the way to big corporations.
In France, HSBC supported 50,000 SMEs during the period under review and extended €1 billion of loans through the French government PGE scheme. However in June the bank announced the long-expected sale of its French retail business and its 244 retail branches.
