- The metaverse offers numerous applications for financial institutions, such as attracting new clients, improving the understanding of the portfolio of products and services, and increasing the visibility of the companies' innovative axis.
- At an internal level it allows promoting self-learning, attracting talent, improving process efficiency, and socializing among employees.
- Long term, the metaverse could uplift to new lines of business and financial products, although to this effect the sector must face some challenges such as the regularization and control of identity and data.
The metaverse already offers numerous possibilities for financial institutions: from promoting customer relations and contributing to their understanding of the products and services they make available to them, to helping employees in their daily performance. All this with a clear focus on experience as the backbone, which is one of the fundamental aspects of the metaverse. This conclusion is extracted from the report developed by NTT DATA ’Challenges and opportunities of the metaverse in financial services’, after conducting a combination of market trends, conversations with analysts, and answers provided anonymously by clients of the consulting firm.
The metaverse is obviously a new channel. But beyond that, it is a digital asset, a new object for which users make financial outlays. The development of this new transactionality is giving rise to the appearance of a new market, often supported in many cases by the digital currencies of these platforms. Thus, the metaverse is a market in which very diverse solutions fit and in which there is still a long way to go both from a technological and business perspective, it still has miles away to reach its full potential.
In this context, the banking industry can play a leading role. In this initial stage, the challenge for financial services companies is to explore its different possibilities and test their application in other use cases. In this sense, examples and tests are beginning to be seen in different areas of the value chain of these industries.
Banking use cases in the metaverse
To date, the lines of work that are focusing on the main initiatives of the financial sector in the metaverse range from attracting and acquiring new clients -especially among the younger audience-; to the reinforcement of brand awareness and corporate positioning; and improving financial education. In this sense, the diversity and the complexity of an entity's portfolio of products and services means that few customers are aware of everything that their bank can offer them. The use of immersive scenarios allows for disclosing how these products work in a different way, facilitating the understanding of their risks and benefits and improving their commercialization potential.
On the other hand, internally, the metaverse also has numerous application. Such as attracting talent, promoting self-learning, improving process efficiency, and socializing among employees.
Challenges of the financial sector in the metaverse
To integrate the metaverse with the fulfillment of the basic rights, responsibilities, and obligations that operate in our world, the first challenge that must be addressed is regulation in the short-medium term. In decentralized models, users must gain control over the footprint they generate on these platforms, something that can only be achieved through adequate regulation that covers the fundamental axes of service.
In this sense, three main service axes are currently identified: current banking regulation (acting as a channel), where the service would continue to be provided from the real world, supported by traditional products and using FIAT currencies; regulation of the interactions between banking in the real world and banking in the metaverse (acting as a branch), a scenario in which both traditional products and specific products for the metaverse would be used, combining the use of FIAT currency and cryptocurrencies; and internal regulation of the metaverse (acting as a subsidiary or new bank), with the aim to develop new regulations that contemplate the specific cases of the metaverse, with specific products for this model and transacted entirely through cryptocurrencies.
Another challenge to address is to ensure security in all actions carried out by customers in the metaverse (virtual identity, protection of personal data, protection when making payments or renewals, etc.) and the responsible and transparent use of their data, since activity in the metaverse provides companies with greater ability to learn more information from users.