HSBC, the British multinational banking and financial services firm, is deepening its presence in tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) on cryptocurrency networks, now offering custody services.

The company reported a tokenized RWA custody service that will be available to HSBC institutional clients in 2024. The initiative was carried out in conjunction with the firm Metaco, owned by Ripple Labs.

Zhu Kuang Lee, HSBC's chief digital officer of data and innovation, commented that they are seeing a "growing demand for custody and management of digital asset funds from asset managers and owners, as this market continues to evolve."

This custody initiative is complemented by several moves that the multinational firm has made with the aim of expanding into the world of tokenized real-world assets.

Last week it announced that it is going to start the process of tokenizing the physical gold it keeps in the vault of its London headquarters. "Tokenized physical gold can be traded between HSBC and institutional investors through the HSBC Evolve single dealer platform."

According to estimates by the London Bullion Market Association, there are 698,000 gold bars in the vaults of Greater London. This equates to $525 billion.

In 2022, it announced HSBC Orion, a proprietary tokenization platform that financial institutions and enterprises can use to issue digital bonds.

The bank has also left open the possibility of tokenizing other types of real-world assets, as well as custody and trading them.