Banking and virtual reality (VR) do not appear to be the most natural of partners, but many firms are looking towards VR to help service their customers.

Partly down to the success of Oculus Rift technology, VR is coming to the forefront in sectors such as gaming and real estate, but can it make its mark in the banking and payments sectors?

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Virtual reality is very much in vogue. Companies are popping up on a near-weekly basis to get a share of the market.

HTC has the Vive, co-produced with games company Valve, while Sony is working on its own VR headset. Google and Nintendo have also designed their own cardboard offerings, budget VR headsets available from $10.

However, the main contender in VR is Oculus, the creators of the Oculus Rift headset. The firm was purchased by Facebook for $2bn in2014 and is now working closely with the company, as well as with Samsung, who are creating some interesting concepts with regards to banking.

In June 2017, BNP Paribas produced a VR online banking app. Users could access their account activity, check their balance and transaction records in a VR environment.

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It also allows users to go through all the steps of a real estate purchase on the VR app. Potential buyers can use the technology to put the user into a virtual version of the property

Citi partnered with Live Nation and NextVR to offer live VR concerts. Customers can be in the front row or on-stage at selected concerts utilising the VR technology. Citi also began working with Microsoft HoloLens to create a VR trading platform in the form of a virtual workstation.

Wells Fargo set up a Together Experience tour for its customers utilising VR technology. Virtual mazes are set up as a metaphor for customers’ financial journey.

So while the VR uprising is slow in the banking world, it is coming. With tech companies such as Google, Samsung and Apple investing heavily in virtual reality, it will not be long before banking and virtual reality hold hands.