HSBC global private banking has announced the launch of a Metaverse Discretionary Strategy, which will be available to its private banking clients.
The fund aims to capture the growth opportunities globally over the next decade arising from the development of the metaverse ecosystem, by investing in companies within the metaverse ecosystem, according to a statement by the firm.
“We seek investment opportunities globally that are riding the wave of this disruption and benefiting from structural long-term growth of the five key segments we identified,” said Chris Tang, portfolio manager based in Hong Kong.
The five segments are infrastructure, computing, virtualisation, experience and discovery, and human interface.
The strategy is exclusive to HSBC’s high net worth and ultra-high net worth professional investors in Hong Kong and accredited investor clients in Singapore.
Metaverse
The bank said it sees “plenty of potential upside” in the metaverse sector, and quoted data from Bloomberg Intelligence that estimates the sector to reach $800bn globally by 2024.
The so-called “metaverse” refers to shared three-dimensional virtual worlds that enable highly immersive virtual collaborations and interactions between large volumes of concurrent users. The metaverse will also combine physical spaces, two-dimensional Internet experiences with virtual reality and augmented reality technologies.
Hong Kong launched its first metaverse ETF to retail investors in February this year.
HSBC Asset Management has $640bn of AUM and has a presence in 25 countries and territories, as of the end of 2021.
In 2020, HSBC combined its retail banking and wealth management, asset management, insurance and private banking businesses to create wealth and personal Banking which serves over 39 million customers globally.
