Once upon a time you had to go to a bank branch to carry out transactions. Today, you can move money at the click of a mobile app button. Courtesy of Nvidia, we now have a new vision for the bank of tomorrow — and it’s powered by web3. Naturally.

Buried in an excitable press release about a new partnership with Deutsche Bank on artificial intelligence, Nvidia has an intriguing line that “future use cases will explore immersive metaverse experiences with banking clients.” (that reference to the metaverse is absent in Deutsche’s own version of the release).

At a time when crypto is brutally punching itself in the face and Meta seems determined to become the first mega cap to become a small cap there’s something almost perversely heartening about the resiliency of metaverse hype.

Nvidia’s intriguing plans are, perhaps unsurprisingly, not unprecedented — banks have been setting up stalls in virtual worlds for over a decade and a half.

Back in 2005 Wells Fargo launched its own personal “Stagecoach Island” in the digital world Second Life as an education tool. Perhaps it was the potential for cross-selling that attracted it.

A year later ABN Amro opened a branch in Second Life. The FT reported at the time it had held a job interview session there, but also that it had no targets on return on investment. Probably just as well.

In the age of the blockchain, JPMorgan stole the limelight in February by opening up a lounge in Decentraland, a proof-of-concept…