Nature of Business

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2011

1.	Nature of Business

SVB Financial Group is a diversified financial services company, as well as a bank holding company and financial holding company. SVB Financial was incorporated in the state of Delaware in March 1999. Through our various subsidiaries and divisions, we offer a variety of banking and financial products and services to support our clients of all sizes and stages throughout their life cycles. In these notes to our consolidated financial statements, when we refer to “SVB Financial Group,” “SVBFG”, the “Company,” “we,” “our,” “us” or use similar words, we mean SVB Financial Group and all of its subsidiaries collectively, including Silicon Valley Bank (the “Bank”), unless the context requires otherwise. When we refer to “SVB Financial” or the “Parent” we are referring only to the parent company, SVB Financial Group, unless the context requires otherwise.

We offer commercial banking products and services through our principal subsidiary, the Bank, which is a California-chartered bank founded in 1983 and a member of the Federal Reserve System. Through its subsidiaries, the Bank also offers brokerage, investment advisory and asset management services. We also offer non-banking products and services, such as funds management, venture capital/private equity investment and equity valuation services, through our other subsidiaries and divisions. We primarily focus on serving corporate clients in the following niches: technology, life sciences, venture capital/private equity and premium wine. Our corporate clients range widely in terms of size and stage of maturity. Additionally, we focus on cultivating strong relationships with firms within the venture capital and private equity community worldwide, many of which are also our clients and may invest in our corporate clients.

We are headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and operate through 26 offices in the United States, as well as offices internationally in China, India, Israel and the United Kingdom.

For reporting purposes, SVB Financial Group has three operating segments for which we report financial information in this report: Global Commercial Bank, SVB Private Bank, and SVB Capital. Financial information, results of operations and a description of the services provided by our operating segments are set forth in Note 20—“Segment Reporting” in this report.