Don’t Mock the Metaverse. Not my words, The Economist’s

Dateline: Jersusalem, 12th July 2023.The issue of paradigm shift in financial services is being raised again. To me, paradigm shift means a change in business models themselves, not the refinement of existing models. In my view, the predictions of disruptive change are justified and if I think about some recent conversations in the U.S. there are currently three technologies that stand out as impacting fintech strategies in the immediate future: central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), the Metaverse and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Only two of these were discussed at the Paris Fintech Forum this year: The Metaverse wasn’t mentioned, possibly because people are bored with it, possibly because CBDC and AI have eclipsed it. But the fact is that it needs to be part of the strategic landscape for financial services organisations.Subscribe nowPrioritiesMany of the issues discussed in Paris were of course the same as those being discussed in London or New York: changes in buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) dynamics, the expansion of embedded banking and open finance, new opportunities around digital assets, cryptocurrencies (and specifically the need for their regulation) , dealing with fraud and so on.To the specific issue of CBDC, the Governor of the Bank of France said that CBDCs were the fintech development that he was most excited about and there is no doubt in my mind that the deployment of money as a platform will change the sector. There will be new products and services developed on this platform that will move value around the internet, not around…Don’t Mock the Metaverse. Not my words, The Economist’s