Yet another Hacker News

UK Defence Startups Are Being Denied Banking Services Under ESG Rules

62 points fascinnn 1 hour ago 46 comments

ratherbefuddled 1 hour ago | parent

Probably a blessing not having an account with Barclays. Try Allica.

wwdx 1 hour ago | parent

Its nothing new. The UK aren't known for supporting real innovation.

bvcp 1 hour ago | parent

what a symbolic post about how authoritarian this stuff has become

hollowonepl 1 hour ago | parent

Hilarious! A bit of Monty Python-alike logic too ;)

m12k 1 hour ago | parent

This shows that ESG needs updating. Investing in arms manufacturers is no longer just code for "support the bombing of brown people to enrich the MIC", it can also mean "ensure sovereignty and defend democracies against a hostile, desperate dictator" - treating the two as equivalent, and both as immoral, is outdated.

draxen 55 minutes ago | parent

There shouldn't be any ESG.

Violating the E (Environment) should lead to fines to make up for environmental clean up. If severe enough there should be prison time for the responsible higher ups.

Drop the S and G. There are existing laws to for most of these.

Governments can use weapons embargoes to stop their defense contractors from selling to specific countries.

toyg 54 minutes ago | parent

The problem is that it's not a binary choice, and the current situation in Israel is making it extremely difficult for regular institutions to work with defence businesses without avoiding damaging associations in public perception.

rob74 52 minutes ago | parent

OTOH, arms are arms, and when the Ukraine war will (hopefully, someday) be over, the startups that are springing up now, some of which will become established companies by then, will start looking for new markets for their (defensive and offensive) arms developed and tested in Ukraine.

einpoklum 1 hour ago | parent

> Successive UK governments have made the case for more and better defence spending, encouraging British start-ups to invest in this fast-growing ...sector.

War, invasions, occupations - it's a growth business apparently. The UK government approves.

notabotiswear 54 minutes ago | parent

Well, it was called the "British Empire" up til recently (or still is, according to Mark Curtis)...

anonymous_user9 1 hour ago | parent

> when defence spending was naïvely thought to be immoral.

Glad that's been settled!

ivell 1 hour ago | parent

In many cases banks decide the account is not worth the hastle of regulation and compliance. In some countries US citizens have difficulty getting an account due to US regulations being more hassle than worth.

anovikov 1 hour ago | parent

Indeed i personally know the guy who tried to open a bank account in Cyprus on his US passport and after many attempts was denied; he ended up opening an account on his Russian passport easily.

gambiting 54 minutes ago | parent

Which means he lied on application, because every European bank asks if you are a citizen of US.

citrin_ru 45 minutes ago | parent

IANAL but AFAIK no matter which other passports do you have if you are an US person (a citizen or a tax resident) you must notify you bank in any country to comply with the US laws (but having another passport makes it possible to hide that one is an US person).

m000 1 hour ago | parent

> a British start-up focused on surveillance

Good for the British people then, and kudos to ESG. As if the UK doesn't have enough surveillance as it is.

KingMob 1 hour ago | parent

This has nothing to do with tech, and is also boring. ESG rules preclude military startups? As they're intended to do?

What's next, tobacco company bemoans anti-smoking ad restrictions?

weddpros 1 hour ago | parent

I wonder if UK banks have also fired BAE Systems?

dcl 1 hour ago | parent

The _adversaries_ once again having a good laugh.

draxen 1 hour ago | parent

If the US and China were secretly conspiring to sabotage Europe it would look indistinguishable from the EU SFDR and other EU "ESG accountability" acts.

The SFDR and similar EU regulations were originally designed to tackle greenwashing, but has now made it almost impossible to raise money for nuclear, aerospace, and defense startups and ventures in the EU (and by network effects also in the UK).

Since 2025/2026 the EU has promised to find ways ease up these regulations because of the war in Ukraine.

ilikerashers 59 minutes ago | parent

Yesterday in the news there was a picture of a known ISIS terrorist being funded by the state shopping in Windsor while SAS members were being chased in court for spurious charges.

Something is really, really wrong in Europe. There will be books written about this in the future.

lawn 56 minutes ago | parent

> Something is really, really wrong in Europe. There will be books written about this in the future.

Replace Europe with the US and the statement holds just as well. Or China or why not Russia.

We live in bad times.

toyg 43 minutes ago | parent

We live in times. There is always something: just in Europe, in the 50s and 60s we had the Cold War (and on the other side of the Iron Curtain, outright invasions); in the 70s we had terrorism and economic shocks; in the '80s we had Libya, Lebanon, heroin, AIDS, Chernobyl; in the '90s we had genocide in Yugoslavia, big market crashes and sovereign debt crisis, the war in Kuwait; in the '00s we had 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq; you can go on and on...

The reality is that, as long as we don't start firing nukes, we'll all be alright in the end.

lifestyleguru 31 minutes ago | parent

On the contrary during every decade above there were regions in Europe with prosperity, driving premium German cars, and benefiting from cheap workforce and "entertainment" services from impacted other European regions. Some remained prosperous through all of these decades.

m000 53 minutes ago | parent

The idea that "a known ISIS terrorist" could roam the UK without US consent is rather amusing. But yes, something is really, really wrong in Europe. /s

dcl 52 minutes ago | parent

There's already books... Gad Saad's 'Suicidal Empathy' is one.

MrBuddyCasino 34 minutes ago | parent

Books have already been written on this, some as early as 1945 (That Hideous Strength, C.S. Lewis).

Otherwise I can recommend basically everything by Curtis Yarvin and Kevin Dolan (https://substack.com/@exitgroup, https://substack.com/@exitgroup).

There is a wide and rich ocean of deep thought and historical knowledge in that corner, for those curious and open-minded enough.

jmyeet 27 minutes ago | parent

The funny thing about that is you can frame lots of things that way.

For example, "if China were secretly conspiring to sabotage the US, they would goad the US into a war with Iran".

Anyway, as far as Europe's self-sabotage goes, I don't think China has much to do with it. The US however does. Trump browbeating NATO countries to spend 5% of GDP on defense is both a gift to US weapons manufacturers and a foil to dismantle the social welfare states in Europe. Because of different versions of austerity, those defense dollars come directly at the expensive of the social safety net and the tenets of European social democracy. I really don't think that's an accident either.

It's also true that Europe has been asleep at the wheel, perfectly happy to outsource their defense to the US. I am skeptical that the political will exists to replace foreign military hardware with homegrown industries but I believe that Europe needs to be responsible for its own security if it's to survive long term.

GDEpps 1 hour ago | parent

Try NatWest

rwmj 1 hour ago | parent

HSBC are known for their ... flexible application of the rules: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20673466

toyg 52 minutes ago | parent

I've anecdotally heard that, as a reaction to that kind of issue, they've shifted all the way towards the other end of the spectrum. But who knows if it's actually true at all levels.

gambiting 42 minutes ago | parent

Honestly I live in the UK and I literally don't understand how anyone with a sliver of conscience can have an account with HSBC.

matt-p 1 hour ago | parent

This has been a thing almost as long as I can remember. What's new here?

edh649 1 hour ago | parent

Hearsay from a single person about being denied a Barclays account for who knows what reason (banks never give a reason, to stop you from re-applying and getting round their KYC rules). From a suspect publication I've never heard of and very little info on the internet, linking to another 'Originally Published In' similar unheard of with little info publication. Submitted by OP with little post history and only from this site? I'd take this article with a large pinch of salt.

m000 57 minutes ago | parent

Tech bros can be real whiners when denied unfettered access to our savings.

martimarkov 46 minutes ago | parent

Not only that - everything from this website seems to be posted in the past 3 months by 3 different accounts.

AI misinformation and slop - should be moderated and not top of HN

martimarkov 39 minutes ago | parent

Another link to the same article: https://thesentinel.eu/article/b3sglnx6amob8mq73vm1u1jk/uk-d...

1:1 copy

rmccue 25 minutes ago | parent

It's credited at the end as being a repost of the article from The Sentinel, so at the very least, the link should be updated.

zajio1am 27 minutes ago | parent

I read similar comments from leader of CSG, one of the largest european defense manufacturers.

dismalpedigree 50 minutes ago | parent

This isn’t just UK. Large portion of banks in US won’t work with weapons companies. It’s not law, it’s preference from their compliance groups.

Kim_Bruning 43 minutes ago | parent

I know there's similar regulatory hurdles in the Netherlands. Up 'till recently it made some amount of sense not to finance defense, presumably because a lot of it would almost certainly end up in funny places. Not so much anymore of course.

toothrot 42 minutes ago | parent

Poor guy, no banks taking his blood money.

asxndu 35 minutes ago | parent

cough, cough, USDC

surfingdino 35 minutes ago | parent

FUD.

clarionbell 33 minutes ago | parent

This is a well known issue in Europe. Companies operating in the defense industry, even well established ones, can not access regular banking services. This issue affects even countries where ESG is not considered a priority, such as Czechia, because only branches of international banks operate here.

helsinkiandrew 17 minutes ago | parent

> Having already secured financing of £700,000 and the support of the government, the former British Army officer was confident of being able to open a bank account for his fledgling business.

A very young company with £700,000, a few employees and no trading history would get heavy "Know Your Customer" scrutiny at any bank whether or not it was defence or not. "Due to the nature of your business" could be due to that rather than it being a defence company.

They could well just have ticked to many boxes on Barclays "possibly suspect" checklist and got automatically denied by someone in compliance with hundreds of accounts to check a day.

Matt Levine/Bloomberg has talked about this a lot - where banks can turn the dial from giving everyone an account (and get sued and large fines - Barclays faced litigation due to Epstein), or reject more and get accused of not giving bank accounts to legitimate companies/people.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/newsletters/2026-10-14/ban...