Today, during a panel at the SIBOS banking event, the range of metaverse definitions became apparent. Some think of the metaverse as a game, while others consider it a more diverse 3D experience. HSBC sees it as the convergence of the digital and physical worlds, including the time we spend online during the pandemic.

Accenture’s Mike Abbott explored some of the ways banks are using the metaverse. In Korea, Kookmin Bank (KB) is launching virtual branches where customers can talk to financial advisors. Accenture recently surveyed tens of thousands of banking customers around the world about whether they would want to talk to their bank in a virtual world. More than half said yes. Therefore, interacting with customers is a potential application for banks.

He acknowledged that while JP Morgan and others have begun their presence in the metaverse, “Without people, a branch is an empty place. It is absolutely nothing. So the metaverse needs a population,” Abbott said.

Accenture has given an example of how to populate virtual worlds. Since the start of the pandemic, they have onboarded 150,000 employees using their metaverse expertise.

Bank of America is using virtual reality to train 50,000 employees. That apparently even includes preparing for a bank robbery, which is most useful in an ‘immersive’ setting. So employees using the metaverse for collaboration are a second app.

Interacting with customers and employees is really using it as a communication channel. Where is the money?

The market capitalization of virtual earth in the web3 metaverses runs into the billions of dollars. Therefore, real estate financing is a potential business model. However, we would note that sales are already being refinanced, which is happening in DeFi, not through banks.

Another application is payments.

Abbott said all banks are wondering how they can dominate payments in the metaverse. “It’s the absolutely wrong question,” Abbott said. “Payments in the metaverse, or payments anywhere, is not about paying, it’s about getting paid. Is it how you accept payments on the other side?

He continued, “You’re not going to scale this industry thinking any single bank is going to dominate.” Instead, you need collaboration on standards.

HSBC metaverse, web3 learning

HSBC’s Catherine Zhou spoke about web3 in a similar vein. She distinguished between the Web3 economy and service providers. HSBC wants to be an “ecosystem platform provider to drive the Web3 economy rather than compete with the economy,” Zhou said.

The key distinguishing feature of web3 is that users control their own identity and data, and the ability of users to create value.

He made some recommendations on what not to do in web3, which is to avoid porting web2 experiences. For example, consider a digital wallet to be a web2 phenomenon. At web3, you expect payments to be made with a (virtual) handshake or in the blink of an eye.

HSBC bought a piece of land in The Sandbox metaverse and has learned to pay the gas fees. And now that Ethereum has moved to proof-of-stake with validators instead of miners, Zhou asked a very banker-like question: “How do we actually validate validators? What if they’re in North Korea?

And learning by doing is priceless.

“If there’s one thing to take away from this, it’s to really play fast and learn and fail fast. And it keeps spinning,” Zhou said. “And don’t sit there and watch the game. Play the game.”