Understanding the metaverse for financial services | Kyle Danko, Accenture

We are living in a new digital landscape, spending a huge proportion of our time on one digital platform or another. Most of our conversations may be happening on WhatsApp or Zoom; we’re working more and more on Teams and connecting with our friends via TikTok or Instagram. Our digital life is becoming integral to our real life.

Kyle Danko, Senior Manager at Accenture

In that context, it should be no surprise that the Metaverse is such big news. It is a natural progression from the 1990s arrival of the internet which forever changed how we access information. It is a natural follow-on from the early days of MySpace and more recently Facebook and Twitter. It is also a natural evolution of the internet of things that connects our smart phone, our smart TV, smart car, smart heating systems and so on. 

The metaverse is a place where we can socialise, a place where people and objects can move around and connect, and it has come about because of the continuous advancement of a number of fundamental technologies and two important innovations. These are the internet of place, with its ability to create and operate shared virtual experiences, and the internet of ownership, creating unique verifiable digital identities for people and things, enabling everything from digital currencies to new virtual products.

At Accenture, we use the term the Metaverse Continuum. We see a spectrum of digitally enhanced worlds, realities and business models evolving that have the potential to create a massive new wave of digital transformation, changing the way the world works, operates and interacts.

This continuum will advance across all aspects of business, from consumer to worker and across the entire enterprise; from reality to virtual and back; from 2D to 3D; and from cloud and artificial intelligence to extended reality, blockchain, digital twins, edge technologies and beyond. It is about customer experience, new products, building lasting connections, industrial processes and enterprise transformation.

Nike opened a metaverse store which has attracted 21M visitors; Gucci created a virtual handbag that sold at a higher price than the real product. Mars is using a digital twin to create a virtual replica of its entire product lifestyle.

At Accenture, we see the metaverse as critical to our future of work strategy. We have designed unique virtual environments where our people get involved in immersive learning sessions and socialise as teams. This year, we onboarded 150,000 new hires using a virtual campus environment, enabling them to connect with our culture and form new professional relationships. Our people love it.

In banking, the first ATM in the metaverse was announced by Decentraland, while JPMorgan Chase is investing to become the first bank to operate in the metaverse, with its employees working and serving customers in the digital sphere. We are also now seeing the rise of a new type of “gig worker” in the metaverse—earning income by providing services in the virtual world. Accenture sizes the space as a $1 trillion annual opportunity for business and the economy.

Working through the opportunities with members of Scottish Financial Enterprise, the possibility of a more meaningful customer experience – particularly for young people – was seen as an instant benefit of the metaverse. The conclusion was that it would be more engaging and more personal. The tokenisation of assets that extended the value of real products was another exciting realm of possibility.  Thrilled to see so many SFE members at our recent event, we look forward to continuing to shape the future of this technology into a useful, safe and fair platform for our clients to incorporate into their business operations.

The metaverse presents a new world of opportunities, limited only by the creativity of those who choose to step inside.

Kyle Danko
Senior Manager
Accenture