Morgan Stanley's new fintech banking head is from Banking's most nomadic team

When Silicon Valley Bank collapsed in 2023, its top teams were pounced upon by various banks. HSBC bought its UK division for £1 and turned it into HSBC Innovation Banking, while boutique Moelis & Co took a small cabal of technology investment bankers. One of the MDs in the latter team has just left to take a big new role at Morgan Stanley.

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Georgi Balinov joined Morgan Stanley as its global co-head of fintech investment banking, based in New York. He spent the last three years at Moelis, and a year before that at SVB. He's one of three global co-heads alongside Jigar Patel and Kaivan Shakib.

At Moelis, Balinov's team was led by Jason Auerbach, former global co-head of TMT banking at UBS. It was an unusual group in that Auerbach was consistently followed by those loyal to him. Many of the team at SVB were from UBS and the first seven bankers hired by Moelis had worked with Auerbach across both firms. That kind of nomadic movement between firms is more common among pod shop hedge funds than investment banking teams.

Balinov, who had never worked at UBS, was an exception. He was previously an MD at both Merrill Lynch and, latterly, Barclays. He served as the British bank's head of global technology payments banking for two years. 

Morgan Stanley may be reorganizing its fintech ranks in anticipation of a bumper year for fintech. IPO candidates include Monzo, which laid off its entire US operation last week in order to prepare for a European public launch.

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