And imagine this: What if you could teleport from your living room to any bank in this world and complete all your transactions from your home? Isn’t this exciting!
The banking sector is already making its moves in the virtual world. Now that VR (virtual) and AR (augmented reality) are helping expand the horizons of businesses, banking has officially made its entry into the metaverse. This allows customers to utilize bank services without leaving the digital realm.
The metaverse is an immersive virtual reality arena in which users can interact with other users via a computer-generated world. VR (virtual) and AR (augmented) reality headsets make this virtual environment possible. According to Gartner, 25% of individuals will spend at least one hour each day in the metaverse by 2026. Bloomberg predicts that by 2024, metaverse technology platforms will really be economically viable, with transactions totaling $800 billion. The gaming industry has witnessed the most exceptional metaverse applications attracting young gamers by offering unique virtual gaming experiences.
Tracing back to history, we have seen banks work on pen and paper. Now with the technology advancements, bank services are almost on our doorstep. Nonetheless, with the curve towards the metaverse, banks are virtually in our homes.
The two major participants in the Metaverse are Decentraland and The Sandbox. These systems are home to several big institutions, including JPMorgan, Bank of America, and HSBC.
JPMorgan Chase was the first bank to build a metaverse lounge and office. The opulent space debuted on Decentraland in combination with a paper released by JPMorgan’s blockchain arm Onyx outlining what JPMorgan believes is the future of the metaverse, including a statement stating that the metaverse would “infiltrate every industry in some fashion in the coming years.”
In March, American Express also registered trademarks for a virtual marketplace and bitcoin services in the metaverse. Its digital filings for real-world services include card payment services, an ATM, banking, and fraud detection services, as well as leisure, travel, and detection services for its virtual clients.
Quontic, an adaptive digital bank, provides banking services through its virtual offices. Its debit card, which debuted in April, has Bitcoin checking reward accounts as well as cash and high-interest checking accounts. Its digital outpost includes a teller, posters and internet guidance, and an interactive ATM. Visitors can attend a meta-pool party and obtain a free NFT by opening a bank vault via the ATM. This summer, Cogni obtained a collection of NFTs from Bored Ape Yacht Club and is developing a Bored Ape debit card enabling a new flavor of Web3 interactions for clients.
With the amalgamation of blockchain, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and metaverse, the future of banking is set to become a boom for customers. These technological advancements are drastically changing the banking experience with virtual offerings:
Thus, banking with the metaverse will make financial services more accessible and flexible for customers and banks. All we need to do is gear up and look forward to creating a new avatar for your banking profile!!!
