Telefonica Spain has announced a tie-up with Santander to launch a joint-innovation project to test out 5G applications in the banking sector.

The project will focus on three different usecases, 4K video conferencing, low latency cloud storage and virtual reality. The hope is to more readily engage customers and adapt their financial products to meet the new demands of the digital economy.

“The initiative with Santander Spain is the result of the collaboration with our corporate customers to ensure that 5G technology is deployed in a way that fully meets their needs, prioritizing the development of the most demanded capacities,” said Emilio Gayo, CEO of Telefónica Spain. “With initiatives like this we also ensure the early adoption of 5G and the positive impact on the Spanish industrial network.”

“This agreement with Telefónica responds to Santander’s commitment to innovation and to accompanying our customers in the transformation process towards the new generation of 5G communications,” said Rami Aboukhair, CEO of Santander Spain. “The new technology will allow us to have a better connectivity and faster speed of response in transactions and to offer all our customers the best experience and the best possible solutions.”

Starting with the video application, a 4K video conferencing link will be set up between two bank branches to offer ultra-high-resolution image, 4096×2160, and natural motion with zero delay. Secondly, a low latency cloud storage solution will be provided by Telefónica, based on the Hitachi Content Platform Anywhere Edge solution embedded on Telefónica’s edge computing infrastructure.

Finally, the pair will introduce co-working spaces developed in collaboration with Idronia that use Virtual Reality, 360 video and Edge Computing technologies. The aim is to offer an immersive reality service allows customers to remotely visit co-working spaces such as the Santander Work Cafe located at the Santander banking office in the centre of Madrid.

5G is being switched on in numerous locations and now it is the time to focus more heavily on the commercial side of telco. There might be some gain in offering eMBB products to both consumer and enterprise customers, but to see the promised value the telcos will have to explore new areas. European telcos might be behind other regions when it comes to engaging the verticals, but progress is being made.