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Comment by reviseddamage | Hacker News Reader

Why SVB and not WF? Seems odd that the sponsor bank for your payfac distribution, that has more resources than SVB, won't equally house the account for this new vertical. Any particular reason?

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Having used SVB at two startups now, they just get startups in a way that the big banks don't. They're not a huge multinational behemoth with its own corporate culture, but rather they specialize completely in the SV business/tech/startup world, it's their DNA. That little intangible is worth a lot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley_Bank

That's anecdotal testimony really isn't it? and it's not true for fintech startups, SVB doesn't even bank Stripe's core payfac business. Other than the namesake, most fintech payment companies use WF, Fifth Third, Chase, Comerica or Cross-River.

Atlas is not directed at fin-tech companies. SVB is more startup-friendly than WF.

No one said that Atlas was directed at fintech.

reviseddamage: You were questioning why Atlas went with SVB and noted that SVB doesn't bank fin-tech in general.

There's no reason Stripe's selection of a payfac provider should (strongly) influence it's selection of a corporate/startup banking bizdev partner. Atlas is linking companies up to regular corporate banking services.

That is also not what I was implying. Banking shell companies is a very high risk activity frowned upon by the OCC as most of the time they are mismanaged. Only larger banks have the flexibility and the bandwidth, and the contingency to manage them. It would seem only likely the the bank that is already banking Stripe, would be the likely one to also bank the shell co's that would be processing through Stripe. Easier on the bank to have oversight and line of sight of the business activities. SVB on the other hand without having other oversight on Stripe, really no vested interest in Stripe's success, and much smaller bandwidth and risk management resources is the banking partner for the shell co's, that is strange, which is what I noted. It is not a normal and natural event, hence my original question.

I'm curious about this as well. How did you choose your banking partner and what considerations did they have re: kyc/aml in this venture?

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