Dialogue with Baixin Bank Chen Longqiang: Can Meta-Universe transform banks?

The concept of a "metacosm" sweeps the globe, and the banking industry is beginning to set its sights on this area.

Last October, U.S. financial giant Bank of America announced that it would conduct VR technology training in the group's 4,300 financial services centers, and about 50,000 employees would learn to use VR devices to complete their daily work and participate in the various customer interactions that employees may encounter every day.

Kookmin Bank has created a "virtual town" on the meta-universe platform Gaser, which includes a financial business center, a remote work center and a playground for customers to complete business consulting and various interactions. Customers can walk into virtual agencies, interact with content, and talk to real-life customer service via video calls. BNP Paribas has also released a VR-based application that allows customers to access their accounts.

Domestic banking institutions are relatively cautious, and none of them have yet said that they will open a "virtual bank" based on the metaverse, but some have begun to gradually test the waters.

At the end of last year, Baidu launched China's first meta-universe product - Xilang, and the Hebei Xiong'an Branch of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China "settled" in Xilang. On January 6, the Bank of Jiangsu also stated that it would lay out the metacosm, "Based on the research and judgment of the underlying logic of The development of Internet finance and digital finance, combined with its own advantages, the Bank began to actively layout the financial metacosm to provide customers with a better financial service experience." ”

The most densely packed layout is Baixin Bank.

In November last year, the bank issued the first non-fungible token (non-fungible token) in the domestic banking industry, and Chen Longqiang, the bank's chief strategy officer, said at the time, "This issuance of digital collections is an attempt for us to meet the meta-universe, as the next generation of the Internet, the way banks interact with customers, product services and even bank forms in the future may undergo major changes." This is the first time that domestic banking institutions have expressed their intention to "welcome the metacosm.".

At the end of December, the bank launched a virtual digital employee (virtual brand officer AIYA), launched the industry's first digital asset management platform (Baixin Bank Whale Xi WeChat Mini Program), to provide financial institutions with digital asset distribution and circulation and other services, the first phase of the digital collection launched by the platform is based on the digital staff "palm version of AIYA".

It can be seen that around the metaverse, Baixin Bank is currently focusing on two major areas: digital people, and blockchain-based digital asset management.

Recently, Titanium Media App interviewed Chen Longqiang, chief strategy officer of the bank. Chen Longqiang said frankly that the important purpose of Baixin Bank's "greeting the meta-universe" is to attract the attention of young people at the level of marketing and customer acquisition; second, to regard virtual digital people and digital asset management as the two major starting points of the bank's digital transformation and promote the transformation of the whole bank.

Chen Longqiang believes that the metacosm may be the next era of the Internet, but it is still in its early stages, the concept is not yet mature, and the current conjecture about the "metacosmic bank" is also relatively preliminary. But even so, the digital economy that accompanies the metacosm is a trend and a wave of certainty, and financial institutions should pay attention to this globalization change.

Regarding virtual digital employees, Chen Longqiang said that after research, it is difficult for the most advanced AI manufacturers in China to achieve the effect of completely replacing real customer service and real tellers - Baixin Bank, as an Internet bank without offline outlets, does not need such functional roles, so Baixin chose the model of real people + CG special effects, and digital people play the role of brand officials and spokesmen, rather than virtual customer service.

Regarding the issuance of NFTs and the launch of digital asset management platforms, Chen Longqiang described the process as "a preemptive start in caution".

Chen Longqiang said that after the approval of the regulator, the issuance of NFTs took less than 5 days internally, and it was only issued in a limited quantity in the form of gifts. For the digital asset management platform, Chen Longqiang believes that it will be one of the infrastructures of the future digital age, with the emergence of different types of digital assets such as NFTs, the storage and circulation of this type of asset is a vast new market, and the banking industry should seize this opportunity.

The following is an interview transcript of Titanium Media App and Chen Longqiang, Chief Strategy Officer of Baixin Bank, edited by Titanium Media:

Titanium Media App.: AIYA, a virtual IP, from the conception to the launch of nearly 10 months, what has been the main experience, which departments are involved?

Chen Longqiang: Virtual digital people and digital assets are the most accessible and most important tracks in the meta-universe, and the current industrial chain is relatively mature, the degree of commercialization is relatively high, and the low-hanging fruits are eaten first. For enterprises, we need to sort out what the needs of the enterprise are, what the needs of customers are, and what the technology trends are, rather than going with the flow. So we spent nearly half a year discussing these issues, researching almost all virtual digital people and technology providers. Finally, it was determined that we wanted to make the virtual digital person into a brand IP, rather than a functional role such as a virtual customer service and virtual teller, and it was clear that the brand, business and technology departments worked together.

Titanium Media App::"Digital people" are gradually beginning to appear in the banking industry, what can it bring to banks? What can AIYA bring to Peretsen?

Chen Longqiang: The banking industry is a highly digital industry, so embracing digital people is the basic logic of conforming to digitalization, but there are not many banks that have tried. At present, there are mainly two types of uses,

One is to, for example, as a virtual customer service, through machine learning to tentatively transfer the current telephone customer service to digital people, for "face-to-face" communication, the essence is to improve the user experience. But at present, user acceptance still needs to be improved, mainly limited by AI, the interaction is not friendly enough, and it is a tool person wearing uniform.

The second is like baixin bank's AIYA, she is first of all a virtual IP, has its own personality and good-looking clothing, looks very sassy, is built according to the virtual idol. The biggest difference is that we personified her, with height, weight and preferences, etc., we recently opened a Weibo and Xiaohongshu account for her, and there will be a virtual live broadcast at the end of the year. We hope that AIYA can endorse and bring "goods" to Baixin Bank, so that everyone can see her and think of Baixin Bank, which is a brand symbol. In the future, she will evolve, through ai training IQ, financial intelligence and emotional chambers will be higher and higher, will also meet with everyone in more financial service delivery links, of course, provided that the interaction is friendly enough.

Titanium Media App: At present, around the metaverse, Baixin has launched "Little Whale Hi" and AIYA, what is the next step of Baixin's plan?

Chen Longqiang: Baixin Bank itself is a native digital bank, which is more agile in comparison. We only have medium-term planning and iterate quickly, and continuing to be agile will be our biggest advantage. Whale Xi is the first digital asset platform in the banking industry, and has begun to issue digital collections, mainly providing digital collection services for financial institutions and customers, benchmarking ant chain's "whale detective" and Tencent's "magic core".

At present, the United States has been relatively leading, and the communication between the regulatory and industry is relatively sufficient. The country is still in its infancy and exploration stage. The banking industry is relatively advanced, in fact, it is easier to understand, for example, the traditional banking industry has a safe deposit box business, storing customers' precious metals, important contracts and the like. For us, we hope to do users in the digital age of digital depositbox business, the underlying technology is the blockchain as the main representative of Web 3.0, play the role of the Value Internet. In the future, everyone's digital assets will become more and more diverse, and the domestic related industries are conservatively estimated to reach the trillion level after 5 years. This track can continue to be deepened, after all, banks are safer and more credible.

Titanium Media App: In the long run, can the metaverse be able to construct a new financial form, what do you think, and what is the basis for this judgment?

Chen Longqiang: From tangible to intangible, from physical to digital, from real to virtual, finance has been accelerating its digital evolution since the birth of the Internet, there may be a singularity, but it is difficult to judge what the financial form will be in 30 years. The underlying logic is an increase in digitalization, and the biggest variable is technology and regulation. From the current judgment, I am mainly concerned about the direct impact of web 3.0, from a global perspective, decentralized value systems may impact the existing financial supply model and financial order, and the two may coexist for a long time.

Titanium Media App: What are your thoughts on the possible business model of "Metacosmos Bank" in the future?

Chen Longqiang: The metacosm is a big concept, formless and boundless, and it may take 20-30 years to complete the evolution. The metaverse is essentially the Internet, but it integrates more complex virtual, intelligent, interactive and other integrated software and hardware. Banks do not need too many new concepts, in essence, it is still a digital bank, it is a service industry, and it is necessary to serve the digital economy well.

In the context of the digital economy, first, industrial digitalization and digital industrialization will bring great opportunities, and the demand for B-end digitalization is actually far greater than that of C-end. Second, the combination of man and machine is the end, the digital survival of mankind will be accelerated, and financial services are theoretically more convenient, inclusive and safe, but objectively we must also avoid widening the digital divide and causing new unequal financial services.