Our reporter Li Bing

　　Trainee reporter Zhang Bo Yu Junyi

　　Born in 1992, the "metaverse" is making waves around the world.

Since 2021, major technology giants have reinterpreted and explored the term "metaverse", which has been described as the next generation of Internet technology and applications, and its influence is also reaching all walks of life.

　　Commercial banks with a keen sense of smell have also begun to set their sights on this field.

Among them, the subdivided tracks such as virtual digital people are even more attractive to the banking industry.

However, the metaverse is still at an early stage, and commercial banks still have a long way to go if they want to play the "metaverse".

　　How does the bank integrate with the metaverse?

What changes will the Metaverse bring to the banking industry?

On January 27, experts from eight major industries were interviewed by a reporter from Securities Daily and talked about the development trends of the Metaverse and banks from different dimensions.

　　Banks are expected to

　　An important "player" in the Metaverse

　　Today, the view that the "metaverse is the Internet 3.0 era" has been recognized by most people.

Domestic financial institutions represented by banks are also actively conducting preliminary explorations, but they have been questioned by the public as just a marketing gimmick, not a future development trend.

　　In this regard, Yu Chen, the author of "Metaverse Token" and co-founder of Yibao Payment, said in an interview with a reporter from "Securities Daily" that one of the most attractive features of the Metaverse is that it can provide an open and freely created An economic system in which users can create, own, trade, and buy digital assets and virtual products.

The economic system needs financial infrastructure, so the Metaverse can be regarded as a highly immersive virtual world superimposed on the financial infrastructure of blockchain technology, and the financial system in the Metaverse can be called "Meta-Finance". -Fi).

As the most important institution in the traditional financial system, banks are expected to become one of the important players in the metaverse in the future.

　　"Metaverse will become an important area for digital economic innovation and digital industry chain expansion. For financial institutions such as banks, Metaverse may be a more advanced and deeper digital transformation direction." Senior, Ouke Cloud Chain Research Institute Researcher Jiang Zhaosheng told reporters.

　　Jiang Zhaosheng believes that because the concept of the Metaverse is still in its early stage and immature in terms of technology, scenarios and products, whether it is a commercial bank or other financial institution, the layout of the Metaverse in the short term is mainly based on technical reserves and scenario exploration. Among them, it is inevitable that there are institutions suspected of rubbing the heat.

But in the long run, industry digitization is the general trend, and Metaverse is expected to drive financial institutions to carry out in-depth business thinking and service upgrades.

　　In an interview with a reporter from Securities Daily, Chen Xiaohua, a review expert on major industrial Internet blockchain projects from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and chairman of the China Mobile Communications Federation's Blockchain Professional Committee, said that in the past few years, the business model and service form of banks have gradually changed from online. The lower entity turns to the complementarity of the virtual and the real.

Under the wave of global digital transformation, developing financial technology, accelerating digital empowerment, and gradually moving towards smart banking and digital banking have become an important direction for the development of the banking industry in the era of digital economy, and the concept of the metaverse undoubtedly provides the banking industry with new ideas.

　　"The combination of the Metaverse and the future economic society may produce a completely different economic model and incremental market space from the current one. Therefore, it is necessary for institutions such as commercial banks to conduct certain research and application exploration on the Metaverse. At present, Banks have explored virtual digital humans, which have been applied in scenarios such as intelligent customer service and intelligent marketing, reducing costs and increasing efficiency." Yu Baicheng, president of the Zero One Research Institute, told reporters.

　Under "Metafinance"

　　Big changes in the banking industry

　　"Metaverse Bank" is an effective way to realize the digital transformation of banks.

At present, under the impact of the metaverse concept, banks are taking the lead in the fields of virtual digital people.

Zhu Youping, the rotating chairman of the Blockchain Special Committee of the China Communications Industry Association and the author of "Chain Reform: Chinese Thinking of Blockchain", said.

　　Zhu Youping further stated that virtual digital employees can accurately complete the whole process of services such as self-answering, business handling, problem handling, brand endorsement, live broadcast delivery, expert consultation, and risk control compliance in banking transaction scenarios, thereby effectively improving the service quality of financial products. To achieve the effect of cost reduction and efficiency increase.

In the future, there should be more financial institutions to explore this track.

　　Zhang Chunzi, a special researcher at Tsinghua SEM China Financial Research Center, told the "Securities Daily" reporter that in the long run, with the gradual establishment and improvement of the Metaverse system, it will have a subversive impact on the traditional operating model of the financial industry.

"In the next three to five years, banks are expected to focus on providing customers with all-weather financial services, reconstructing customer interaction models, online and offline digital twins, and real-time customization of extreme and personalized financial services for customers in terms of metaverse development and application. services, promoting the development of digital financial markets and digital wealth, etc.”

　　Zhang Chunzi believes that with the gradual improvement of Metaverse infrastructure construction and the continuous increase in the number and demand of customers, banks can provide customers with more personalized, integrated and virtualized products and services through Metaverse Bank.

The improvement of customer perception, connection, and service capabilities are the three core tracks for building a financial metaverse. Banks and other financial institutions have great opportunities to invest in this field.

　　Wang Min, a senior industry research expert at Tonglian Data, believes that the Metaverse is expected to bring revolutionary changes in interaction and experience.

In the era of mobile Internet, social networking sites have established connections between people.

In the next era, with the support of 5G, AI and other basic technologies and hardware products, the connected medium will undergo revolutionary changes. Through VR/AR devices, connections will be established in the virtual world, the virtual world will be integrated with the physical world, and the metaverse will be long-term. It is expected to migrate various service scenarios in the real world to the virtual world, profoundly affecting the service content and service methods of banks.

　　"In the future, metaverse thinking and technological innovation will have a profound impact on financial development." Ouyang Rihui, deputy dean of the China Internet Economic Research Institute of Central University of Finance and Economics, told reporters that the metaverse has three impacts on the traditional banking industry: first, the metaverse Emphasizing immersive financial customer companionship, banks are faced with how to use Metaverse's technology to provide customers with a better experience and increase customer stickiness; second, Metaverse emphasizes the development of financial products with insensitive experience, which brings challenges to the bank's risk control system. Including network security, identity recognition, and data security; third, the metaverse emphasizes the interaction between the digital market and the real world, which brings challenges to the bank's industrial ecology and scene embedding, involving the bank's business model, management model, organizational structure, etc. change.

　　Ouyang Rihui further stated that there are two paths for banks to develop the Metaverse in the future: one is that the bank closely follows the pace and path of the metaverse penetration, supports the development of the metaverse, and at the same time expands the development space of the bank itself; the other is that the bank can adapt to industrial digitalization and The direction of the metaverse is to carry out the financial extension of the scene, or it can connect a wider customer base and explore the financial scene of the metaverse world.

Banks build a "metaverse"

　　long road

　　The metaverse provides a new imagination space for the digital transformation of commercial banks, but the banking industry still has a long way to go to build a real "metaverse".

　　“元宇宙的主要挑战集中在三个维度：一是核心技术的创新还有很长的路要走，现实世界与数字世界结合技术还有很多需要突破；二是元宇宙的业务模式和盈利模式仍然不明晰，如何做到既降低技术应用成本，又打造可持续发展的商业模式是最重要的问题；三是元宇宙的经济价值还不够明显，必须通过制定一系列规则，确保元宇宙技术赋能实体经济数字化转型、赋能数字经济规范发展，赋能高品质的数字生活，而不是走向反面。”欧阳日辉表示。

　　陈晓华认为，就当前元宇宙技术进展与生态建设来看，元宇宙给银行带来的仍然是对现有技术和服务的一种补充或场景延伸，且距离大规模商业化推广仍有一定距离，还需相关从业者着眼数字经济，持续进行数字化的探索和迭代创新，确立更多具有强匹配度的应用场景。

　　蒋照生表示，元宇宙是银行等金融机构探寻业务增长源的一个重要载体，但未来金融服务的核心依旧在于用户体验和客户需求。银行等金融机构应当持续提升自身的数字化运营能力和数字风控能力，加强对金融产品和服务的理解和打磨，在安全可控的前提下，为客户制定更加精准和个性的金融服务方案。

　　张春子认为，年轻客户是潜力股，未来银行的年轻客户群体更可能沉浸于元宇宙线上应用和社交，谁能够更有效地满足年轻人的需求，谁就能占领竞争制高点。银行应顺应数字经济发展特别是产业数字化和元宇宙发展方向，积极通过构筑更具有吸引力的场景金融生态，抓住更广泛的年轻客群的“心”。

　　张春子进一步表示，一是加大在金融科技、虚拟数字员工和数字资产等方面的投资和建设力度，推进数字资产的发行、交易和存储等服务。二是实施创新发展战略，增强银行运营的敏捷性和灵活性，重塑业务模式，加快运营转型，走向“极致数字化”。要开发适合年轻群体的金融产品，打造符合年轻客户群体的服务理念。发展网络化、社交化的产品，增强在网络端和移动端的宣传投入，在针对年轻人的金融产品和服务中增加一些更加具有潮流时尚的元素。三是有效控制元宇宙金融发展中的风险。在客户融资方面，银行要保持稳健冷静的经营风险。从互联网发展的历史看，目前布局元宇宙的企业在未来大部分会因为各种原因被市场淘汰，真正能够存活下来的公司，往往会在数年后成为世界性科技巨头，银行要有鉴别判断能力。

　　汪敏提醒，银行等金融机构要注意的是，不管采用何种科技，金融和金融机构的本质属性不会改变，银行等金融机构要遵循金融和金融机构的本质属性。此外，在引用新技术的时候，要警惕元宇宙道德伦理监管真空，注意保护数据隐私和数据安全。（证券日报）