Gaming has garnered a widespread following over the years. Though it has been around for decades, online gaming has had a hand in increasing its popularity with the masses. With this recognition comes an array of other platforms and systems trying to replicate the success of gaming in order to push themselves forward.

The world of finances and investments recently began incorporating elements of gaming into the way they function. This is a process called ‘gamification’ and its presence in the field is gradually building the more platforms apply it.

What does it mean?

The term ‘gamification’ means the application of elements of game design and game principles into non-game environments. Examples of such elements include point scoring, competition with others, and rules of play. An alternative definition is it’s a set of activities and processes that help solve problems by utilizing game characteristics.

It’s possible to use game mechanics as a way to captivate more audiences. Furthermore, it can cut down on workplace stress and increase productivity. As a result, you will effectively achieve a business goal.

The techniques of gamification techniques aim to leverage some of the most natural desires in people. These desires are primarily for socializing, learning, competition, success, self-expression, benevolence, and closure. Alternatively, it could just as easily be their response to the framing of a situation as game or play.

Initial gamification strategies use rewards for players who complete tasks as a means to engage players. The rewards typically include points, achievement badges or levels, filling a progress bar, or providing virtual currency to users. There two notable methods of encouraging players to compete. One is making the rewards for accomplishing tasks visible to other players, and the other is providing leaderboards.

Principles

The core idea behind gamification is not necessarily about turning something into a game. Rather, it is about applying the principles of game mechanics to the following goals:

Engaging and motivating the audience . It effectively creates a challenge, as well as adds to the feeling of accomplishment that most of us strive for.

. It effectively creates a challenge, as well as adds to the feeling of accomplishment that most of us strive for. Making a boring activity into a fun one . It has a positive reception in education due to memorizing facts and solving equations being a boring task for students. With this boredom comes a loss of focus. Clientele operates in a similar way, with subconsciously leaning towards the more fun services.

. It has a positive reception in education due to memorizing facts and solving equations being a boring task for students. With this boredom comes a loss of focus. Clientele operates in a similar way, with subconsciously leaning towards the more fun services. Changes in behavior . It helps people gain new skills by way of rewarding certain types of behavior. For example, you can assist customers in molding their skills in money-saving.

. It helps people gain new skills by way of rewarding certain types of behavior. For example, you can assist customers in molding their skills in money-saving. Introducing concepts that are more complex. Game elements are capable of boosting a person’s motivation to acquire knowledge. An example of this learning about the different types of credit cards. From an educational perspective, gamification can also be a way to raise awareness about new or existing services.

The elements that drive users can fall into one of two categories of motivation: Extrinsic and Intrinsic. Extrinsic motivation consists of rewards that make you want to keep performing an action that itself isn’t rewarding. Motivators of this particular kind include points, badges, and leaderboards.

Intrinsic motivation is something that is satisfying, but only internally, and does not require a material reward. In lieu of this, it may provide applicability, independence, mastery, and purpose.

In the financial world

With all this in mind, it’s important to note that it is not preposterous to utilize actual games in the context of gamification. A good example in the banking industry is an online game that permits users to construct a financial empire.

In this particular case, you are engrossing the audience with an enjoyable game while, at the same time, you are educating them. They are actively learning the principles of good financial investment and forming the skills of smart investing. Therefore, you are covering both the educational aspect and the behavioral aspect.

Gamification in finance and banking is an ideal tool for the engagement of your customers. Moreover, it will help motivate them to keep using your services and it can also assist in attracting new clients.

Though the implementation of technology is prevalent, finance should remain human-focused. The focus isn’t primarily on being only about numbers and transforming them into something better. It’s about improving the relationship we have with money and making it easy for families to track expenses and investments. Not only that, it aspires to help businesses manage their contractors and execute deals.

Attracting and maintaining customers

Host contests and provide rewards. Probably one of the most common techniques in attracting clients is giving them something of value for satisfying certain conditions. An example of this would be getting them to participate in a referral program. Give out points for shopping. You can take the same idea of playing Mario Bros. for coins and put it into shopping with a card that your bank issues. There is a very basic gamification idea for banking that follows this strategy. Users earn points (coins) for shopping with the retailers that you partner with. Later on, they are able to redeem points for gift cards. Make sure the game is simple and make winning easy. Always keep in mind that the point is to make the experience fun, entertaining, and easy to understand. Should the user have to work incredibly hard to earn rewards, they will eventually lose interest. Integrate social media. Allows users with the option to share various aspects to their followers on social media. This includes their accomplishments, the contests they participate in, and any enjoyable features. From this, you’re also getting passive advertising because of your customers spreading the word. Using gameplay as a way to educate. Puzzles, quizzes, short videos, or actual games can help elaborate a topic. For instance, customers can earn redeemable points just by watching educational videos about financial activities. With this, you can raise awareness about financial topics among your customers. From here, they can make intelligent decisions concerning their bank accounts and investments. Use gameplay to promote new services. There are other, fun ways for clients to learn about your services aside from advertising. For example, it could simply be a short video wherein your product solves the main character’s problems.

Notable services

There are a variety of ways to incorporate game design into your business. However, it’s admittedly pretty difficult to theoretically see the value of that decision. Below are a handful of examples of gamification in banking that further illustrate how the ideas can work in practice.

1 – Paypal

Paypal is arguably the leading platform for personal, family, and business money management. More often than not, various purchasing services will provide a PayPal option along with debit and credit card options. It utilizes an array of techniques, but the prominent one gives anyone receiving money from others a free and customizable landing page. This page allows them to collect money through Paypal.me. With this particular method, freelancers are able to receive payments very easily.

2 – Mint

Mint is an online platform that focuses on managing your personal finances. It gives you the ability to set goals and manage them (i.e. keep track of your progress). Furthermore, it allows you to track your expenses, investments, and credit scores. The user interface is simple and it helps make sense of both your financial transactions and your personal budget. Additionally, it will remind you of when you have to pay the bills or if there are any late fees.

3 – Fortune City

Fortune City is a gaming platform that combines accounting with classic city simulation. You record your expenses and from that, your city prospers and becomes a thoroughly unique and beautiful place. The platform provides quick accounting that tracks your expenses with simple actions, easy analysis with charts showing your books at a glance, and automatic sync from a 24/7 running server.

4 – Clear Minds

Clear Minds is an online investment platform that helps users invest money into promising markets and industries. You first register yourself before then setting a target that you wish to earn. The platform will then estimate where exactly you should invest your money. At the same time, an analyst will calculate what the risks are. This platform also illustrates how much you could hypothetically earn if you had invested, for instance, 10 years ago. This is the “Historical performance” feature. Moreover, you can guess the amount you earn should you invest money immediately after registering. This is the “Hypothetical portfolio” feature.

5 – HedgeTrade

HedgeTrade is a forecasting platform that amateur traders who are looking to make trades alongside the experts can use. Traders with experience stake the platform’s native coin (HEDG tokens) to show confidence in their trade prediction ‘Blueprints.’ Novice traders, meanwhile, can purchase these Blueprints (the smart contracts of this platform) in order to trade like the pros. Following the purchase of a Blueprint, users wait for the expiration date to see if their prediction is correct. If it is, then the trader automatically receives HEDG tokens. If not, then the purchasers get the price tokens back, along with a share of all the staked tokens.