Metaverse in fintech: banks worry about environmental impact

More than two-thirds of banks (67%) are concerned that the metaverse will have a negative impact on their carbon footprint, according to the results of a new survey.

Digital transformation agency Mobiquity asked 150 senior UK banking executives about their attitude towards the metaverse. Over half (56%) say they are actively investing in the metaverse with 61% of large banks already engaging with metaverse technologies.

But many banks believe the new frontier will pose a challenge for their carbon footprint, at a time when large financial institutions are pledging to hit net zero within the coming decade. A vast majority of UK banks (94%) are planning to address the environmental impact of the metaverse’s energy needs in some way, conscious that their involvement with the technology will have a negative impact on their carbon footprint.

Financial institutions are among the first-movers when it comes to the metaverse, which is an ecosystem that combines existing technologies like virtual reality and mixed reality to facilitate immersive, 3D digital experiences for customers.

Banks should consider why they’re using the metaverse

Jieke Pan, CTO and VP Engineering for Mobiquity, says: “For the financial services sector, banks worldwide are already looking at how they can apply metaverse technology to the everyday banking function, to provide superior customer experiences and support on a virtual level.

“To maximise the potential of the metaverse, institutions need to think about why they’re using it in the first place, how it applies and ultimately adds value to their business and customers.

“The only way metaverse technologies in the banking sector are likely to succeed is if they become an essential component of the financial services tech stack. The cloud, for example, has become the standard host and single source of truth for banks’ CRM and other systems on a global scale – metaverse may never get to that level of maturity, or grow into that type of critical ecosystem, but only time will tell.”