The Metaverse: a New Frontier Needing Exploration

The media rejoices in either claiming the metaverse is dead in the water or that it is booming. The truth is that the metaverse has been an active commercial proposition (mainly immersive gaming, entertainment and shopping) for many years with substantial payment activity associated with it but also the vision that the likes of Facebook and Apple have is very much a work in progress.

Wherever it falls, payments are made in the metaverse, it is a global marketplace and there is the opportunity to do things differently.

Today’s card payments and automated clearing house transfers may work on e-commerce platforms but are unlikely to work unchanged in this new space.

Blockchain transactions are used, at the moment, in the metaverse because they are good for international value transfer and have relatively low fees compared with traditional payments. Some assume that this will continue. However, the large number of cryptocurrency products and the process steps involved in making cryptocurrency payments suggest this isn’t right without significant change.