Skaleet: the first Core Banking provider to enter the metaverse! 🔥

Introduction 

While the internet is in the process of being reshaped, the banking industry is being impacted by the emergence of new disruptive technologies. Notwithstanding the unparalleled value and usage expansion in 2021, cryptocurrency remains volatile and outside the mainstream financial world. However, the metaverse is about to alter that dynamic. 

It will be this new generation of the internet, encompassing VR, AR, and other immersive technology, that will lead to wide-scale adoption and stability of crypto-currencies. The metaverse economy saw more than $20 billion in retail sales in 2020, and is growing at about 40% a year. While many of these transactions have been limited to digital art, virtual luxury fashion items, video games (an industry that has skyrocketed to $154 billion in global sales by 2021), this is just the beginning of the exploding use of digital assets as a store of value. 

The more people use digital assets, the more the metaverse economy will grow: whether it's sending money between friends, paying for physical goods or backing up real-world assets. This explosion of crypto use, including in the metaverse, is one of the forces behind discussions about regulating crypto, which would help bring it more stability and closer to the mainstream financial system. But banks and financial institutions can not afford to wait for regulation to get involved in the metaverse economy. 

A new approach to customer engagement while leveraging brand trust 🙋‍♂️

Banks are some of the most trusted institutions, with the majority of customers trusting banks more highly than the government. There is therefore huge potential for them to tap into their customers' growing interest in crypto and in storing value in digital assets. 

Mastercard now processes crypto payments, showing how a financial institution is catering to demand for crypto while still keeping its customers within the existing network and brand. Introducing crypto into payment processing and offering new services will help banks prepare for the future, when digital assets are fully involved in financial transactions, like mortgages, loans and the trading of equities. 

Another opportunity for banks to leverage their brands may lie in the field of risk management and user verification, especially as so many people rely on peer-to-peer crypto transactions and want to be able to trust sources of payment. With 47% of bankers believing that customers will be using AR and VR as an alternative channel for transactions by 2030, it is not surprising to see some of the industry’s frontrunners in this field. BNP Paribas has launched an app that enables its customers to use VR in their banking transactions, including opening an account. 

Inventing new products and creating new markets  🎯

It took 15 to 20 years for the internet to permeate the banking sector: the cell phone took five to six years. By moving away from 2D to 3D, we can design an expansive universe with the ability to immerse customers. Banks should think about the ways they can enable their banking services in a 3D world. For instance, using VR glasses, customers will be able to manage their banking and financial transactions anywhere and in a much more immersive way than what is possible on a mobile app. 

Banks and financial institutions also need to realize that millions of people spend time on metaverse platforms, whether in video games, virtual concerts or real estate shopping channels. These are all extremely visual and immersive and create new advertising opportunities, from digital billboards to celebrity partnerships, whose avatars will speak to potential customers.

The metaverse economy is an untapped source of growth, representing opportunities for banks to secure and lend cryptocurrency, NFTs and issue certified documents. Banks will need to decide what role they will play and take advantage of this opportunity to expand their brand. 

Embracing metaverse payment platforms  💳

As the metaverse and its options are expanding, so is the need for digital platforms to process these financial transactions – both in the virtual and the real world. For example, Meta has recently launched a pilot program that allows its users to send money from one digital wallet to another using WhatsApp, offering benefits like international transfers without additional fees. 

There is an opportunity here for the financial sector to provide these platforms or help their customers use them by opening up their APIs to allow users to connect their bank accounts to existing payment apps. But these emerging apps will not be confined to phone or laptop screens; they will need to be integrated into the various VR and AR systems that will make up the metaverse. 

Like in the fintech world, where banks are behind many payment apps that don't have their own banking licenses, they will also benefit from taking a similar white-label approach in the metaverse. There is too much value being moved in the metaverse for banks to ignore it.

Skaleet's Core Banking Platform enters the metaverse!  🚀

The metaverse requires transactions to be carried out on demand and almost instantaneously. Specifically, individuals in the metaverse will need to (1) be able to transact and interact as easily as if they were in person, and (2) have confidence that those transactions will settle. Blockchain and digitalized money transactions offer a viable and proven method for individuals and institutions to carry out transactions in a virtual, traceable, cost-effective and real-time manner. The instantaneous element of blockchain and digital payments means instant processing and settlement of digital assets such as NFTs, cryptocurrencies, stablecoins and other assets yet to be designed. These assets can then be traded, sold and marketed via the metaverse linked to an individual's blockchain-based payment wallet or equivalent. This means that blockchain has the potential to provide an instant and inexpensive way to engage in retail. 

Building on its Core Banking Platform, Skaleet offers a platform that can be used to optimize various payment methods and value-added services to fit the metaverse use cases for merchants – virtual land, avatars, gaming/play-to-earn, wearables/clothing, new experiences (concerts, events, etc.), art (paintings, music, etc.), advertising, training, medical services, and other assets (cars, IT equipment, etc.). 

Skaleet's platform acts as a potential solution with significant value for building a platform that accepts C2B payment methods and their settlement – fiat money payment, crypto payment (Bitcoin, ETH, stablecoins, etc.), payment cards linked to a crypto balance. 

You can use the Skaleet platform to manage your payments via a multi PSP module for easy payment processing (traditional payment cards, fiat on/off ramp PSPs, and full-stack crypto-currency PSPs like Coinbase) and APIs to distribute these different payment acceptance and processing models to marketplaces in the metaverse. 

We expect these use cases to become more streamlined due to the convergence and interoperability between the crypto-currency and traditional payments ecosystems. While we expect more and more payment providers to embrace the metaverse, Skaleet is positioning itself as a disruptor and founder of a crypto-currency and blockchain-based payment infrastructure. We believe that blockchain-based payments and providers will dominate the metaverse.

The Skaleet team would like to wish you a very happy April 1st!