How Virtual Reality Transforms Professionals and Everyone else’s Transactions

The telecommuting boom has given some virtual reality (VR) companies an incentive to try new trading methods.

Platforms are evolving rapidly and companies are in a position to sell new technologies, which aren’t big companies yet, but many believe they will soon.

Glimpse Group is a subsidiary of several different VR businesses that use real-world applications. Launched last month, the company has eight VR groups in its portfolio that include telemedicine, entertainment, and learning programs for schools and businesses.

It also focuses on stock trading through a business called D6VR. This is what former Morgan Stanley analyst Andy Maggio told CNBC in an interview, “I believe VR will be the most innovative technology of our lives.” Maggio admits that technology isn’t ready for prime time, but he says the quality of technology is improving rapidly. “The resolution is twice that of five years ago, the hardware is advancing very rapidly, it’s lightweight and easy to use,” he said.

Several financial companies have experimented with this technology, but no financial company has plans to quickly dismantle the physical trading floor.

Lyron Bentovim, a former hedge fund manager and CEO of Glimpse Group, isn’t surprised at the pace. “Wall Street’s adaptation is slow, but this is the future of trade,” he said.

Bentovim claims that traders can usually see up to 6-8 screens in physical space. “You are limited,” he said. With VR, you can view and manipulate dozens of screens and layer your data based on it. “You can see traders observing multiple trends and immersing themselves in the data without being bound by physical restrictions,” he said.

The Glimpse Group tries to name itself with spaces, but that’s not the first thing to enter. FlexTrade, a British company specializing in creating software for financial companies, unveiled its first VR program for traders at a 2017 conference.

“Traders just don’t have enough real estate on their desks,” said Managing Director Andy Mahony. “We can do better than keyboards, screens and mice.”

In a test round, Mahony discovered that full-fledged VR was so disoriented that it made traders sick. However, with the new extensions, the problem is lessened.

FlexTrade’s R & D team runs augmented reality tests that incorporate a set of data, charts, and information into real-world settings so that users can see things simultaneously in both the real and virtual worlds. I have provided it to my clients.

“Clients like it, but don’t think we’re there yet … but we’ll be coming soon,” Mahony said.

“The real advantage is the ability to visualize the data in multiple dimensions,” said Brennan McTernan, Chief Technology Officer of D6.

He believes that there are three areas where VR is becoming more valuable to the financial industry.

The first is for traders, allowing them to break out of physical space and customize their data and surveys. Second, you can view your data in 3D, control its size and color, and overlay your data on top of other data. Third, “financial advisors can help clients tell better stories and better explain their data in virtual reality.”

Space executives acknowledge that wearing a headset for multiple hours at a time can be uncomfortable and disorienting. But they also argue that VR allows clients and financial professionals to work undisturbed for at least part of the day.

As far as recruitment is concerned, the Glimpse team is ready to wait patiently. “There was a time when no one had a computer on their desk, and then things changed rapidly,” said CEO Bentovim.