British Banking Giant HSBC Offers Wealthiest Clients New Metaverse Fund

HSBC will be offering a new metaverse-focused investment fund to its private banking clients in Asia.

The bank revealed on Wednesday that its new fund called the "Metaverse Discretionary Strategy portfolio" will be focused on investing in five key components of the metaverse ecosystem: Infrastructure, computing, virtualization, experience and discovery, and interface.

The fund, which HSBC says is designed for high net worth and ultra-high net worth professional investors and accredited investors in Hong Kong and Singapore, will be managed by the bank’s asset management arm.

"The metaverse ecosystem, while still at its early stage, is rapidly evolving," said Lina Lim, regional head of discretionary and funds for investments and wealth solutions, Asia Pacific, at HSBC. "We see many exciting opportunities in this space as companies of different backgrounds and sizes are flocking into the ecosystem."

HSBC’s foray into metaverse investing may have been foreshadowed by its recent purchase of digital land in The Sandbox, one of the ecosystem’s leading virtual worlds. The financial giant formed a partnership with the company and became the first financial services firm inside The Sandbox.

Sebastien Borget, COO and Co-founder of The Sandbox, said:

“We’re pleased to see large, trusted institutions such as HSBC join The Sandbox open metaverse and embrace the culture of Web3, connecting with users through entertainment, gaming and user-generated content. We believe this is the beginning of a broader adoption of Web3 and the metaverse by institutions driving brand experiences and engagement within this new ecosystem.”

Of course, HSBC was only the second major bank to officially open up shop in the metaverse. In February, JPMorgan released a whitepaper on the metaverse, while also revealing that the bank had opened up a new lounge inside Decentraland.

“The metaverse will likely infiltrate every sector in some way in the coming years, with the market opportunity estimated at over $1 trillion in yearly revenues,” JPMorgan said. The bank said that instead of having stores in every city, major retail brands would instead build a global hub in the metaverse that would be able to serve millions of customers from just one location. The metaverse would also revolutionize “gaming, sports betting and gambling from cash to crypto,” they said.