>Eyebrook is far from the only defence company to be debanked
AI misinformation and slop - should be moderated and not top of HN
1:1 copy
What a weird response.
It's currently far more damaging to a bank to give someone an account to perform illegal activities than it is to deny one to a legitimate company. And accounts that are in the gray zone (where transactions keep getting flagged and have to be checked by compliance) are likely to cost far more than they make the bank.
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.
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.
The reality is that, as long as we don't start firing nukes, we'll all be alright in the end.
My point is that no decade is particularly "good" or "bad" even in peacetime - shit happens all the time. And of course, only 80 years ago most of Europe was in rubbles.
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.
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.
Glad that's been settled!
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.
In cars, real estate, then into private helicopters and airplanes. In that order. In eastern Poland light airplanes and helicopters are flying as if the region was some Arab petroleum state. The Dutch can conceal it from peasants much easier in their overseas territories.
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...
Good for the British people then, and kudos to ESG. As if the UK doesn't have enough surveillance as it is.
What's next, tobacco company bemoans anti-smoking ad restrictions?
War, invasions, occupations - it's a growth business apparently. The UK government approves.