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As discussed in part 1, the metaverse presents ample opportunity for financial institutions to meet their consumers in the digital space for the purpose of education.
Let’s take a look at what traditional financial education exists today, and how the metaverse currently provides educational content.
What Financial Education Exists Today?
Traditional financial education is typically outdated, difficult for consumers to access, and not user friendly. For children specifically, some banks and credit unions offer programs to foster financial wellness and teach account management skills. However, this usually requires parental initiation and involvement, and more importantly, the engagement and attention of children.
Today’s financial education options typically involve creating new accounts, sharing personal information, and keeping up with their curated content. Through videos, online courses, and eBooks, organizations aim to teach topics such as understanding mortgages, credit, and loans. While valuable, these offerings typically have low interest and attendance rates.
While these programs offer important and helpful information for consumers, the simple fact is that they are generally not interested, and children are certainly not engaged.
Enter the metaverse. Adding a new element to financial education, disguised a bit with gamification, can keep people engaged and learning financial wellness without necessarily knowing.
What Types of Education Exist in the Metaverse Now?
Some organizations have already recognized the substantial opportunity for education in the metaverse. Meeting children (and adults) where they’re already spending their free time is a simple way to keep them engaged in educational content.
For example, hundreds of millions of people currently spend time in metaverse games like Roblox and Minecraft, and educators are taking advantage of interest-driven learning.
Tasking children with simple coding and building activities within these platforms gives them an engaging and fun way to learn new skills, including communication, teamwork, technical skills, engineering principles, and problem-solving.
Anzu, an in-game advertising platform, launched a campaign in the metaverse for World Autism Awareness Day in Turkey. The goal was to spread awareness about autism as well as promote social responsibility among kids and teens.
Children with autism were encouraged to meet each other in virtual spaces and “paint” pictures, which were displayed in the Istanbul Grand Airport and even auctioned off as NFTs to raise funds for an autistic support foundation.
Although many other organizations rave about the opportunities for enhanced education in the metaverse, none have seemed to take actionable steps to make it happen.
How Financial Institutions Can Utilize the Metaverse
Financial institutions have a golden opportunity to enter the metaverse now, especially considering that in games like Roblox, children already have a chance to make their own virtual money, and even must pay their “bills” and handle paychecks from virtual jobs.
Financial education for children can come from banks and credit unions making themselves known where they are already playing in the metaverse. Comparable to how Chipotle allowed players to roll burritos behind the counter, financial institutions have an opportunity to accept players as “consumers,” and help educate them on handling virtual money.
For example, establishing your bank or credit union as a part of game play where people are making virtual money can help them to learn how to budget, set up credit cards, establish a line of credit, apply for loans, etc. – all for their virtual assets, of course. Users could visit virtual branches, establish a savings plan, withdraw from ATMs on the go, take out loans for virtual assets like clothing and accessories, and more.
Children can smell educational content from miles away; meeting them where they are already making and budgeting their own virtual money, paying virtual bills, and even purchasing virtual vehicles, keeps them engaged and interested on their own accord while promoting healthy financial habits from a young age.
Use Cases for Banking in the Metaverse
With or without a VR headset, people can enter the metaverse. The only difference is that a VR headset makes the experience immersive, with 360-degree views of where the user is, responsive to where they move their head to look. However, many users experience the metaverse just from their computer.
- Financial education: A user visits their bank’s branch in the metaverse and completes a course or speaks with an employee about understanding mortgage lending, all from their computer at home.
- Financial well-being: Still at their virtual branch, this same user sets up a new savings account and explores the amounts needed per month to save for a large purchase.
- Brand awareness: A non-member is “walking” around in the metaverse and sees a credit union advertisement on the side of another virtual building with a free game play or other offer. They then look up the credit union online and inquire about becoming a member.
- Employee training: Bank or credit union employees enter the metaverse for hands-on training from a computer, with or without a VR headset.
To learn more about how your financial institution can live in the metaverse and provide financial education to users, schedule a discovery call with our experts today.
Hear more on the metaverse in person at FTSI's ExCITE 2022 - Into the Metaverse
event, December 2nd 2022 at FTSI's Executive Experience Center in Monrovia, CA.