To state the obvious, banking is important to small business. After all, bank lending is vital to the growth and operations of many small businesses.
For good measure, banking very much is a small business sector. Consider that 69.8 percent of employer firms in commercial banking, according to the latest Census Bureau data (2020), have fewer than 100 employees, and 93.4 percent fewer than 500 employees.
So, what about banking and the emerging metaverse?
Deutsche Bank has provided a look. The analysis noted, “Banks … recognise the metaverse as an opportunity: for them, it is about accompanying their customers in the new digital universe.”
How is this bank accompanying customers, or envisioning how it will do so?
“Deutsche Bank, for example, will soon open a new 3D lounge in Decentraland, one of the leading metaverse platforms. Visitors – or rather their avatars – will be able to explore the lounge and, to begin with, view ten predictions published by Ulrich Stephan, Deutsche Bank’s Chief investment officer for private and corporate clients. Towards the end of this year, there will also be a virtual live event in the lounge, where Ulrich Stephan will talk about what has become of his predictions and what ten theses he has for the year 2024.”
This lines up with the “overall aim of opening up new ways of interacting with clients. In the distant future, the bank could also use the metaverse as a space to provide clients with product advice.”
What might banking meetings look like in the metaverse future?
Sabih Behzad, Deutsche Bank’s Head of Digital Assets and Currencies Transformation, explained, “Ultimately, in the future, we could engage with our clients in a much more intense way in the metaverse than through video platforms like Teams or Zoom… Instead of just seeing and hearing each other, we could, for example, walk side by side across a virtual company site and look at and even touch new machines or production equipment.”
Few sectors are more established and traditional than banking, and yet, we see technological advancements in areas like AI and the metaverse leading to exciting changes and innovation. That’s a message, or an example, that small business owners should take back to their own enterprises.
