HSBC is now a new partner with blockchain gaming giants, Sandbox. Thus, the bank can establish its presence in the sports metaverse space and engage its members.
Joining The List
Sandbox made the official announcement of the new partnership through a blogpost published on March 15. However, details of the financials involved in the deal weren’t revealed as per the blog post announcement.
Through this collaboration, HSBC becomes the latest firm to join the sports metaverse space through Sandbox, following brands such as Snoop Dogg, Ubisoft, Warner, Music, and Gucci. HSBC’s CMO, Suresh Balaji, opined that “most people’s experience of the web3 will be through the metaverse and we want our clients to be the forefront of this experience. Hence, this collaboration with Sandbox.”
Pro-Blockchain But Anti-Crypto
HSBC’s new collaboration is part of the bank’s growing adoption of blockchain technology. Even though the bank has shown strong interest in using blockchain tech, it has shown almost zero interest in investing or encouraging its customers to invest in the crypto space.
As most international banks acceded to the demands of their customers to utilize the ledger technology, HSBC was among the top banks to incorporate this technology and establish a blockchain-built financial product for overseas financial transactions with their customers. While announcing the launch of that product, HSBC claimed that the new product would facilitate effective payments for its customers.
Despite its anti-crypto stance, HSBC has shown tremendous support for creating national digital currencies. Last year, the bank’s CEO, Noel Quinn, remarked that national digital currencies could enhance economic growth by making payments less costly and faster.
Quinn further wrote in a blogpost that “there is need for proper regulatory policies on cryptos (including stablecoins) for them to be as reliable as national digital currencies which will enable them commensurate with the risks associated with them.” Last November, HSBC was among the top investors in Consensys (a blockchain firm) funding round at that time, with an investment of $220m.
Rising Institutional Interest In The Metaverse
Many top institutional investors started taking notice of the blockchain technology, including the metaverse sector, following last year’s boom of the crypto industry. Asides from this HSBC collaboration, some top institutional investors have also announced deals with metaverse-related projects in the last few weeks,
Two such notable investments were JPMorgan and Siam commercial bank’s collaboration with Decentraland and Sandbox, respectively. JPMorgan’s collaboration with Decentraland made the bank the first financial institution to make an inroad into the metaverse space. Popular audit firm, PWC, predicted that the metaverse sector would be worth $1.6 trillion within the next decade.
Also, popular credit card issuers (American Express) have filed the necessary documents to start selling its range of financial products in the metaverse. A top-level executive with Sandbox said, “the collaboration between these top financial institutions and us proves that Web3 adoption will be faster than earlier imagined. The side benefit of their investments is that users’ engagement and experiences in this space will rise through the roof in the shortest time.”
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