Metaverse & Fintech is central to Money 20/20 Europe

Fintech’s position in the metaverse was the main topic of discussion for four leading experts who addressed one of the financial world’s biggest issues.

Main stage speakers exploring finance and metaverse were Guillaume Vaslin founder and strategic designer for ENNO studio GmbH, joined Steve SuarezGlobal Head of Innovation, Global Functions at HSBC, Jelena Zec an investor with Citi Ventures and Zoe WeiHead of Fan Token and Binance Connect.

Why virtual worlds attract fintechs to the meta-verse

A number of factors attract fintechs and banks into the metaverse. These include;

• Early stage opportunism – If companies had known how successful the internet was going to be in the late 90s, most of them would have used it before.
• Opportunities for branding – Just like fintechs like Sokin gather football teams to spread brand awareness in a new demographic, banks and fintechs do the same with the meta-verse. It is unlikely that people will go into the meta-verse to visit their bank, because all processes are easily performed online anyway, and visiting a bank – even a virtual one, is just not the highlight of the fun. But by going into the metaverse, these institutions remain relevant and make their mark on worlds that show growth potential, such as HSBC in Sandbox and JP Morgan in Decentraland, they will be placed in the heart of areas that actually get a lot of virtual foothold.
• A new dimension to customer service – Brick banks are dying out because online banking services are so good. However, many institutions still want to be able to offer what they consider to be face-to-face human services, and the metaverse offers that opportunity.
• A hub for digital currencies – Many companies in the metaverse already trade in a number of different currencies. This trend seems to be continuing.

Session summary on banks and fintechs in the metaverse

According to the session description, the speakers explored the hype surrounding the meta-verse. It said: “From big retail brands to technology giants, the biggest names in business are planting a flag in the metaverse. Financial services are crucial to unleashing the full potential of the metaverse by offering secure and friction – free payments. For fintech startups, this offers a huge opportunity to integrate their services into the future of the digital economy.

“We can already see clearly that the infrastructure that drives this new digital age will be different from the dominant payment solutions distributed today. With the development of metaverse still at such an early stage, join us in this session to explore how fintechs has the great potential for innovation in the metaverse. “