Banking’s journey in the metaverse

The current hype surrounding generative AI has pushed the metaverse out of the headlines, but companies from Meta to Apple and Microsoft are still committed to the vision of immersive 3D overlays to existing web content, as well as more ambitious developments in AI-enabled Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR).

However, the experiences of these technology giants is useful in thinking about how banks (and indeed other businesses) should approach the metaverse.

As with any technology, to be useful the metaverse needs clear use cases and a defined audience for those use cases. This means thinking about which elements of the metaverse make sense for which customers and for what business objectives. It also means concentrating on use cases where the metaverse can genuinely enhance the existing interaction, not simply re-skin it. Not everything is necessarily better in a virtual 3D world.

CaixaBank, a metaverse pioneer

One bank that understands this and has launched a variety of different metaverse initiatives is Iberian leader CaixaBank.

Like other institutions, CaixaBank has used the metaverse to explore customer reactions to digital innovation by starting with the obvious: Collective virtual spaces can be used to literally replace physical interaction – in banking a virtual branch can perform most if not all of the functions of bricks and mortar, enabling customers unable to visit branches to benefit from virtuality, and also attracting younger customers already used to operating in virtual worlds.

For example, in gaming, its fintech bank, imagin, jointly with PlayStation, through PlayStation Spain and PlayStation Talents, has organised a hackathon to develop video games in virtual reality to foster innovation in the video game industry and in the metaverse.

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