HSBC Offers New Investment In Metaverse To New Asian Conglomerate

HSBC says its discretionary portfolio is designed for professional investors (photo: pixabay doc)

JAKARTA - HSBC Holdings as a financial services company wants to take advantage of the new virtual reality of Silicon Valley. HSBC has launched a fund to capture investment opportunities in the metaverse for wealthy clients in Hong Kong and Singapore

In a statement on Wednesday, April 6, HSBC said the Metaverse Discretionary Strategy portfolio, managed by its asset management arm, will focus on investing in the metaverse ecosystem across five segments, from infrastructure, compute, virtualization, experience, and discovery, and interfaces.

"The metaverse ecosystem, although still in its infancy, is growing rapidly," Lina Lim, Head of Region and Fund for investment and wealth solutions, Asia Pacific, at HSBC, told Reuters. "We see a lot of exciting opportunities in this space as companies of all backgrounds and sizes flock to this ecosystem."

Metaverse consists of a network of virtual environments accessed through different devices where users can work, socialize and play. This has been in sharper focus since Facebook changed its name to Meta last year reflecting its stakes in the sector.

HSBC said its discretionary portfolio was designed for professional investors with high and very high net worth and clients of accredited investors in Hong Kong and Singapore.

Last month, HSBC said it had purchased a plot of virtual real estate in an online gaming room. This makes them the second global bank to invest in the popular metaverse platform after JPMorgan which already has a presence on blockchain-based Decentraland.

HSBC has also invested USD 3.5 billion (IDR 50.2 trillion) into its personal and wealth banking business. This is in line with his ambition to become Asia's top wealth manager by 2025.

Global wealth managers, including UBS and Credit Suisse, have increased their workforce in Asia as countries such as China and India have produced more billionaires and millionaires than any other country.