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Reaffirming our commitment to customers one year after the SVB crisis

headshot photo of Camilla Matias Morais

Camilla Matias Morais

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Mar 08, 2024, 2 min read

Mar 08, 2024

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2 min read

As we approach one year post the collapse of SVB, we want to use the opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to our customers.

A year ago, one of the most respected and well-used institutions within the technology industry collapsed due to interest rate risk and a subsequent deposit run.

In the wake of the collapse, Brex acted quickly to increase its FDIC insurance, open thousands of accounts for impacted customers over the course of a weekend, and ensure credit card limits were not impacted during this time of emergency. Brex also established a $1B emergency bridge loan program to help impacted companies make payroll.

It is also important to note that SVB was a partner to Brex and so many other companies in the ecosystem. Out of respect for the relationship, once SVB merged with First Citizens, Brex deposited $200M into SVB and announced a partnership with the bank.

While we are proud of what we did a year ago, we know we must continue to innovate and add value to our customer base. In the last year, we’ve made huge investments in our Brex Business Account product, which has grown from $3B to over $7B in deposits. We added features like reverse wires and free international wires to over 100 countries. Customer adoption has followed with over 33% of customers using the product, up from 25% prior to March ’23. Over 90% of the customers we added over the SVB weekend continue to use Brex’s business account today.

One more recent innovation that is worth highlighting is our ability to use the Brex Business Account to offer customers higher credit limits. When Brex customers use the Business Account as their primary banking product, we can offer limits 3-4x higher with our innovative Secured Account Control Agreement. This is especially important for customers who need higher limits due to the nature of their business operations.

Lastly, the events of March 2023 demonstrated how important vendor selection is for companies. The market is competitive and companies like Brex need to do more every day to win the trust of their discerning customers. As a result, over the past year we made material investments into our security, privacy / GDPR compliance and infrastructure. We added direct processing and clearing with Mastercard, and on the global front now have local currency billing across more than 10 countries with acceptance across 200.

The fact that over 90 publicly traded companies now use Brex, up from less than 50 in the past year is a testament to our commitment to serving a broad range of companies - from recently incorporated Tech companies to Enterprises.

In summary, I want to thank all Brex customers and community - including those who joined us rapidly over the weekend of March 9, 2023 - for putting your trust in us. We are so grateful for the opportunity.