HSBC Partners with The Sandbox to Offer Educational Services

The metaverse is becoming an attractive place for financial institutions that want a presence in the virtual world. One of the largest international banking and financial service providers globally, HSBC, has announced a partnership with The Sandbox. The latter is one of the leading players in the metaverse.

Through this partnership, HSBC seeks to open up a wide range of opportunities for the global virtual community. It will engage with other global financial service providers and gaming communities on The Sandbox.

HSBC partners with The Sandbox

Through The Sandbox, HSBC wants to focus on boosting financial literacy. It wants to create educative experiences with its partner companies, including Animoca Brands. The experiences will be educational, accessible and inclusive.

The COVID-19 pandemic created an increased need for digital banking. This has resulted in financial institutions closing their physical locations. Therefore, these institutions have boosted their presence in the digital world.

The metaverse is an initiative that gives people a new way of experiencing Web3. Web3 is the next version of the internet, and it adopts interactive technologies such as augmented reality, virtual reality and extended reality. The chief marketing officer of HSBC in Asia-Pacific, Suresh Balaji, noted that emerging platforms provided an avenue to create an opportunity for the firm’s current and future customers.

“Through our partnership with The Sandbox, we are making out foray into the metaverse, allowing us to create innovative brand experiences for new and existing customers. We’re excited to be working with our sports partners, brand ambassadors, and Animoca Brands to co-create experiences that are educational, inclusive and accessible,” Balaji added.

The co-founder of The Sandbox, Sebastien Borget, noted that this partnership was a step toward seeing an increased number of large and trusted institutions venturing toward Web3 and connecting 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,” Borget added.

Animoca Brands is the parent company behind The Sandbox. The firm tweeted that HSBC would be joining more than 200 existing partnerships running on the metaverse through this partnership. Besides HSBC, the other brands that have integrated their services into The Sandbox include Warner Music Group and Ubisoft.

JPMorgan ventures into the metaverse

One of the largest financial institutions on Wall Street, JPMorgan became the first bank to create a virtual office on Decentraland. Decentraland is also one of the largest virtual worlds developed through blockchain technology.

Before launching its office on Decentraland, JPMorgan had estimated a huge growth in the metaverse, saying that the space would hit a valuation of more than $1 trillion in the coming years. The launch of JPMorgan’s onyx lounge on Decentraland was announced in February this year. Onyx is the blockchain unit of JPMorgan developed in 2020.

JPMorgan has become invested in the crypto space and blockchain technology. This goes contrary to previous remarks by the bank’s CEO, Jamie Dimon, who has been sceptical about the cryptocurrency sector. At one point, Dimon had stated that Bitcoin was “worthless.”

However, the growth of the cryptocurrency sector over the past year and the increased demand for crypto services from customers has resulted in a change by JPMorgan. Through the virtual Onyx lounge, visitors are received by a digital portrait of Jamie Dimon.

JPMorgan’s Onyx Lounge is situated in the Metajuku district on Decentraland. Metajuku district is a shopping district on Decentraland developed from the Harajuku district in Tokyo. The district was developed by Republic Realm.

To learn more visit our Investing in The Sandbox guide.