ABN Amro, the Dutch bank which has been pioneering in Second Life, has confirmed that it is still interested in the medium, despite significantly reducing its footprint in the virtual world this year. In an interview with e-consultancy, head of 3D experience at ABN Amro, Popke Rein Munniksma, stated that there was still 'a golden business case' for the use of 3D virtual worlds within customer service, and ABN Amro's intention to move towards selling products in virtual worlds.
For a bank, of course, that is a rather more complicated challenge than for most brands. The importance of complying with often convoluted regulations, at any rate not designed to work in the context of virtual worlds, is one factor. Once financial products start to be sold, a weight of additional regulation kicks in to protect consumers from, for example, misspelling. Another vital element of any technology used by banks to sell products has to be security. It is conceivable that ABN Amro could look to create sufficient security in Second Life, perhaps by using a private island which they themselves host. However, it remains to be seen whether most customers would, at least in the short term, feel secure enough to give personal information to a bank in a virtual world. One could imagine a whole new breed of phishing attacks, with scammers building whole 3D models of a bank in a virtual world. Despite all these difficulties, Popke Rein Munniksma hopes to be selling products by 2009, although he is at pains to point out that 2009 is an aspiration rather than a deadline.
An area in which ABN Amro is, perhaps understandably, more bullish about the promises of virtual worlds is their internal use: "At this time, we are mostly looking into virtual meetings - how you can use virtual worlds as a substitute for conference calls and business meetings. The business case is obvious - the travel costs and the time you spend in traffic jams." Interestingly, Munniksma reveals that they are looking at using Active Worlds internally, rather than something like Second Life or OpenSim, because of the lighter performance burden it places on corporate computers clearly not procured with 3D in mind.
Virtual Worlds Forum is delighted to be welcoming Popke Rein Munniksma as a speaker to the conference on 6-8th October, 2008.
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