MindArk and their wholly owned subsidiary Mind Bank AB made virtual world history earlier this week when the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority (Finansinspektionen) granted a license to ‘conduct banking activities’ in MindArk’s virtual world(s) Entropia Universe.  This license officially sanctifies Mind Ark AB to act as a central bank within the Entropia Universe and conduct real world banking, and all associated financials for users.  This announcement follows the January announcement of MindArk launching their first planet company to oversee Planet Calypso.

“This is an exciting and important development for the future of all virtual worlds being built, using the Entropia Platform. Together with our partner planet owner companies we will be in a position to offer real bank services to the inhabitants of our virtual universe.” Says MindArk CEO Jan Welter Timkrans.

Again, MindArk is the first virtual world that has incorporated a real world bank into it’s systems.  Millions of transactions can be prcessed by the bank for further transfer to MindArk and the virtual universe.  Mind Bank says that they are also planning to offer selected banking services to customers on the conventional (read: real world) market.

So if running an MMOG wasn’t enough for the growing virtual world developer, they’ve now jumped into the unbelievably complex world of financial institutions.  Fighting fraud and microtransaction/monetization leakage is a topic that even the most savvy in-game monetization experts battle everyday.  MindArk is now taking this issue to an entirely new level by adding financial services.  Granted, they’ve segmented this operation into it’s own free standing business, but it is still plugged into the entire operation.  Since MindArk is the first Virtual World to brave these waters, they’re clearly blazing a trail, and my guess is will be watched with eagle eyed scrutiny.  If they get it wrong, the fingers are sure to be pointed in their direction very quickly.  If they get it right – well, now that’s something to study, isn’t it?

Related articles by Zemanta

• MindArk’s Entropia Universe now has legally sanctioned virtual central bank (venturebeat.com)
• Online Game Gets Real-World Banking License [Cash Rules Everything Around Me] (kotaku.com)
• MindArk creates ‘Entropia Universe’ planet as independent company (news.cnet.com)

Tags: banking services, calypso, Entropia, entropia universe, financial institutions, Finansinspektionen, microtransaction, mindark, mmog, monetization, swedish financial supervisory authority, virtual universe, virtual world, virtual worlds, world bank

This entry was posted on Friday, March 20th, 2009 at 10:16 am and is filed under industry news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.