CBI Becomes 1st Bank to Join Metaverse

Commercial Bank International (CBI), a Dubai-based corporate and retail bank, became the first bank in the United Arab of Emirates to have a presence in the metaverse by launching its metaverse location.

CBI became one of the few banks which joined the virtual world at the level of the Middle East and globally.

Now, CBI clients have the access to get to the bank’s virtual location via Decentraland at cbi.dcl.eth or (63, -127) using the Decentraland map coordinates.

In this regard, CBI CEO Ali Sultan Rakkad Al Amri said: “We are proud to be the first ever bank in the UAE and among the first in the Middle East to bring the metaverse experience to our customers and people. It’s a testament to our strong support and belief in the country’s vision of being a leader in innovation worldwide.”

He noted that he looks forward to promoting the integration of the real and digital worlds asserting the bank’s keenness to implement new digitization initiatives and advanced technologies to offer better services for its clients.

CBI debuted its metaverse location during its participation in XVERSE, a space in Gitex Global, dedicated exclusively to those embracing metaverse technology, at their Activation Partner booth. Gitex Global 2022 kicked off on Monday at the Dubai World Trade Center, with the participation of 5,000 exhibitors in 26 halls. The event will last till October 14.

The Emirati bank has strategized an agenda to support the digitization and innovation aspirations of the UAE. As part of the agenda, CBI partnered with UAE burger brand, Pickel to showcase a real-time metaverse use case as they will go together to enable a digital economy.

Over the past few years, the UAE has positioned itself as one of the world’s prominent hubs for metaverse and blockchain technologies.

The Emirati government, in July, launched the Dubai Metaverse Strategy which aims to contribute $4 billion to the emirate’s economy. The strategy targets increasing the number of blockchain and metaverse companies fivefold within five years as well as offering 40,000 virtual jobs to be one of the top 10 global metaverse economies.