Silicon Valley Bank Howard St, San Francisco

I run a small tech startup with potential for major growth. Because we are still in Build phase, I won't go into details. SVB was highly recommended to us for exceptional service specifically for tech startups like us. When shopping for a bank partner, I attempted calling them. There is no possible way to reach a human able to talk about potential customers by phone. I even attempted calling the branches with identical results. We had to "fill out an online survey" and wait for them to call us back at THEIR convenience (Strike 1). We filled out the Survey. Under "Describe Business", we said, "Call us and we will be happy to talk to you about it.". Because our service is unique, we do not wish to describe it on generic forms with strangers yet, for trademark safety. Two weeks went by with no response (Strike 2). They were the ONLY bank who had completely failed to respond of those we looked at, so we were already about to write them off when we got an email stating that they only serve tech startups and SaaS (which we are), and therefore our business does NOT meet their criteria. So, because I asked them to call as promised for me to describe our business, they instead, without even speaking with us, assumed otherwise (Strike 3). You cannot pay me to do business with a bank that has no interest in even talking with a potential client. If this is how they treat us now, I shudder to think how they would treat us as a client when we need services. Needless to say, we chose another banking partner we are happy with. Don't do business with SVB. They had the absolute worst response possible.

Very friendly and helpful when you call in, but you have to call in quite a bit even to do routine things like issuing a debit card or enabling bill pay. Worse you then have to wet sign a paper form to make those things happens. I thought Silicon Valley Bank would be a little more tech forward since so many startups use them, turns out that is not the case!

Update: The manager called me up and explaining that we shouldn’t have been charged this. And promptly refunded all of them. I really appreciate it. Therefor I’ll update it from 1 to 3 stars. Original review: We've banked with them for almost 4 years. Suddenly they started to charge close to $200 per month! $125 per month for online banking! $25 per month for wire (doesn't matter if you use it or not). Beyond these outrageous charges, the online portal seems to be from the beginning of the millennium. It used to cost $35 per month (which we still get charged, the other charges are on top of this).

It's not an actual bank office and you can't ask them any questions here. Even by phone they will tell you first apply for an account and then they will tell you more information about services and wire transfers. That is very wird. I want to know some information about services before applying to recognize do I even need their service. Very surprised for me.

This is a corporate office, you can not do any banking services here.

Friendly staff, very knowledgeable about the tech community and always happy to help. Great service.