Is this a joke? Doesn't look like!

Entropia Universe is a virtual world, a Second-Life-like creation by the Swedish MindArk, with 800,000 registered users and 80-100,000 regular players. Just for a notice, let's say it's a little… weirder than SL, but nothing too unusual up to now.

The thing is that they really got a (real) financial institution! The Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority granted a licence to the game managers to operate a bank, in order to get closer to the users' finances. The goal seems to be allowing users to easily convert real money against the "local" currency (PED, Project Entropia Dollar, exchanged for 0.1 dollars today). In addition, MindArk plans to offer players interest-bearing accounts, let them deposit their salaries and pay bills or lend cash via the in-game bank.

Silly or just amazing?

[ via BBC ]