Augmented Reality: The Finance Sector’s New Medium

Augmented realities have seeped their way into our lives in various ways including entertainment mediums like gaming, facilitating online meetings in the business world, and offering training to the medical and military field. This was especially useful when the Coronavirus pandemic hit out lives in 2020, halting nearly every aspect of our life. As we begin to segue into a new state of “normal”, we must begin to ask ourselves, “Can we use this technology in other parts of our lives?”. 

What are Virtual and Augmented Realities?

Augmented reality is a medium by which users can be placed in a simulation of objects to reenact a real world experience. While multinational corporations will be able to benefit tremendously off of this technology, the general public will be able to use it as well. Consumers with low to minimal knowledge on financial literacy will be shown financial data in a comprehensible and visually appealing way.

How are Virtual and Augmented Realities being utilized?

Financial service companies like TD Ameritrade have worked with Oculus Go to create an online VR experience to further educate others about the wonders of the stock market and how to go about trading shares, stocks, bonds, etc,. VR can also be used as a means to facilitate online payments. Neobanks, firms that utilize softwares and technologies to streamline banking, have applications that have been rapidly expanding, rounding at nearly 19.6 million users in the United Kingdom alone. Being an active member of the economy has become especially difficult for the visually impaired, but AR can assist in creating voice enabled payments which utilize voice recognition software. This can also act as a huge stepping stone in contactless payment. 

What are some of the advantages in utilizing AR/VR Technology? 

Aside from being a huge leap in Information Technology (IT), AR/VR Technology can provide numerous benefits to both the clients and finance service companies everywhere. Augmented reality can offer more hands on customer support as users can be assisted towards nearby banks and financial service centers. Additionally, they can improve customer service by training employees beforehand so that when dealing with real clients, they’ll be able to provide high quality service. Additionally, as concerns have risen about the security of online banking. However, with AR technology, biometric security can get integrated. It will utilize face and voice recognition in addition to fingerprint scanners to be able to authenticate clients’ accounts. 

What are some of the downsides in using AR/VR Technology?

As AR is still a new concept for a lot of us, understanding the interface may come up as an impediment when trying to implement AR technology in the lives of users. They may require special training to prevent mishap which may cause both the client and the firm many issues down the road. Additionally, it’s expensive to not only implement but also research AR projects as not only would the bank need to be able to install the necessary software but the client would also need to be equipped with AR based devices in order to operate said software.

What does this mean for the future:

As the finance industry is branching out and taking advantage of artificial intelligence and new data analytics tools, the finance industry may be able to use these virtual realities for concrete tasks like data visualization to simply assist a client’s experience with their online bank more effectively, efficiently, and user friendly.