On February 15, reports emerged that JPMorgan has now dipped its toes into the metaverse. It now becomes the first bank to open a lounge in the Decentraland virtual world.
The mega-bank opened its Onyx lounge, complete with roaming tiger, in blockchain-based Decentraland to coincide with the publication of a paper on the chances and investment opportunities that are presented by the metaverse.
With the Facebook rebranding to Meta as Mark Zuckerberg bets big on the Metaverse, JPMorgan’s paper indicates that the opportunities that are presented by interactive, digital worlds appear limitless.
The paper highlights:
“The success of building and scaling in the metaverse is dependent on having a robust and flexible financial ecosystem that will allow users to seamlessly connect between the physical and virtual worlds. Our approach to payments and financial infrastructure will allow that interoperability to grow.”
For now, not all banks are convinced by the hyped opportunities presented by the Metaverse. Recently, Starling CEO Anne Boden criticized Facebook’s plans, remembering that in 2006 a bank opened a branch in Second Life, commenting:
“Fast forward a few years and see how much simpler it proved to be to provide 24/7 human contact via an app.”
