After the Internet of things that speak to each other, the Covid-19 pandemic abruptly introduced video communication into daily life and the business world. Included in futuristic articles until recently, remote working is today a part of our daily lives. What's next? The metaverse seems to be within sight.
Metaverse promises a brand new world. We are now ready to carry virtual experience, launched with Tamagoççi eggs, continued with Second Life, and entered into everyone's life with cows, tomatoes, and corns of FarmVille, to a new immense world, including education, sports, banking, and politics.
Accordingly, the first thing that comes to mind would be surely the cult movie of 1999, The Matrix, and Neuromancer, the book series that inspired it. However, we should also remember that the mastermind behind all these ideas is the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard. He was the philosopher who introduced the simulation world created with established reality, a universe whose reality is replaced by simulacras.
How can the metaverse shape the finance world?
Thirty years ago, finance professionals used papers, pens, and calculators. However, they transitioned to internet banking, mobile banking applications, and artificial intelligence (AI) before we knew it. The next step is the googles that allow augmented reality and virtual reality first, then the world of avatars and holograms, which also gradually gain momentum.
Soon, we will be able to join the digitalized financial world via our avatars and dream about many things. In fact, this is a fast world full of surprises, turning our heads like a dizzying cliff-top. Such that, we will be able to stop by the virtual branch of a bank for ten minutes while sunbathing on the beach, channelling our investments with a customer representative. However, there is still the risk that someone could access your avatar and have an unfortunate meeting with your representative during your sunbathing.
Virtual tours to museums have already begun to place. Soon, it may also be possible to watch football matches as holograms. By depositing a considerable amount from a digital wallet and obtaining a hologram with Messi's capabilities, you can even be in the starting eleven at Camp Nou with your burgundy striped blue jersey! Messi is now a PSG player, though… 😅
It's hard to predict the future of the world!
Imagine: While sitting in your home, garden, or on your couch, you can meet your bank representative, as if in a physical environment, perform transactions, and obtain financial consultancy service anytime. Digital bank employees provide you with recommendations on having better financial health anytime you allow. There is no such a thing as "I called my representative and couldn't reach". Regardless of your location, you can work with the same representative. Moreover, this representative is a digital employee with a name, language, and recommendation level you have determined.
As in digital banking, we can also predict that in the metaverse, physical location investments of banks will gradually decrease, independent services will increase instead of branches, and competition will positively reflect customer costs. Accordingly, the metaverse will allow small-scale companies to compete more with the large scales. The process will evolve towards an environment where whoever is agile will retain more customers.
Besides providing advantages such as bonuses, points, and xmoney to their customers, banks will soon offer them a free virtual meta-tour to the Louvre Museum or the ability to watch the Champions League final match and use their points for meta-trips. Stadiums will not be limited to hundreds of thousands because a billion people will be able to watch a match from the same stadium. Moreover, each individual included in this football audience will be able to sit in the same
seat that provides the best visual angle of the stadium.
Everything is evolving and changing at a dizzying pace. Keeping up with the change requires looking to the future, more importantly, going beyond and seeing it...
Soner Canko
Digital CEO
Bibliography: https://www.tomorrow.com.tr/teknoloji/1782/
