Roberto Ferrari
Roberto Ferrari, the Lead of Qorus’ Digital Reinvention Community, a thriving community centered around the sharing of insights, with events, articles and media content, shares his personal perspective on the relevance and financial market potential of the metaverse.
Why would an industry that is not entertainment based invest so much in establishing a presence in the metaverse?
I think metaverse is relevant for a few things:
• First it is another engagement channel that we cannot ignore; both for branding purposes and for engagement opportunities.
• Secondly there are opportunities to share and highlight new services, test new engagements, create more bonding and attract new clients
It is part of the digital reinvention of financial institutions, with a long-term perspective.
What is the market potential that you and your colleagues perceive in the metaverse? How much disruption do you expect it to cause to your product/service offerings?
As said before, there are several potential advantages. You must however have a long-term vision. Think of Facebook at its start and now. It will take a while to develop massively but it will become relevant, as it will help create new ways of customer engagement and new services, especially for affluent customers with a very strong digital approach.
Do you expect the metaverse to be almost exclusively utilized by younger demographics? How can one make sure such technology is also broadly adopted by Gen Xers and baby boomers?
I do not think the metaverse will be used only by the youngsters. It is the usual innovation curve that will be shaped starting from them but then moving up the scale and reaching out at the end also to the other generations. Do not forget that between Europe and the US alone there are almost 150m digital affluents. This is not to mention Asia.
You might fail at the beginning but this doesn’t mean you have wasted money. You have learned.
What are the main security risks associated with the adoption of the metaverse? How does one ensure that they are circumvented?
This is tricky. The risk is there. That is why I believe brands with a very strong reputation in terms of security and trust like financial institutions can have an advantage if they build attractive ways of engagement and offer new relevant services.
How reliable of an investment/business transformation is the metaverse? How much of a financial return do you expect the metaverse to bring to your industry?
Very hard to say now. Did you know 15 years ago what would have been your financial return from Facebook? I thing financial institutions have enough funds to make some initial investments and learn from there with a very open mind and approach. You might fail at the beginning but this doesn’t mean you have wasted money. You have learned.
