How to use gamification in banking and finance

For financial institutions that are evolving in an increasingly competitive environment, the search for digital innovation is constant in order to meet their commercial needs. Whether it is to find new customers, upgrade the user experience (UX) of their services, or to teach a young person to save, every bit of added value counts.

However simple that may sound, banking and the financial services industry generally is anything but simple. In terms of the nuts and bolts of finance, you have allsorts of legislation, legacy accounts held on legacy systems, and all sorts of other minutiae which can be hard to fathom if you’ve never worked in the financial sector.

One approach that can definitely give banks and financial institutions a shot of vitality and vigour, and help them achieve all sorts of goals across different business functions, from increasing the customer satisfaction rate to training staff, is gamification.

What is gamification?

Gamification is where you use game mechanics and game design elements, particularly those from video games, and adapt them to boost user engagement in different industries. Think point systems, badges, and leaderboards, and think about appealing to people’s desires for competition and discovery. Think about what makes people try hard playing video games or sports, and harnessing that energy and enthusiasm but relaying it into the workplace, or into marketing. Through its playfulness, gamification aims to educate and involve a target audience. By using elements specific to games and video games, you can immerse players in an intuitive and stimulating universe, and help motivate them to overcome different challenges.

Drawing on concepts from psychology, the aim of the gamification concept is to improve the user’s commitment and motivation. This is known as the “state of flow,” a theory developed by the psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi. It is a mental state of maximum concentration, engagement, and fulfilment. The user is completely immersed in the task at hand and the experience is both challenging enough to maintain attention, yet achievable enough not be overly taxing, and deliver users with a sense of accomplishment.

The success and effectiveness of gamification makes it a major boon for businesses across different industries and sectors, and the banking and financial services are no exception. Already, many fintech giants have adopted gamification to achieve specific objectives: KissKissBankBank, Plum, Robinhood, etc. Even some legacy banking institutions are working on their own gamified approaches to different aspects of their services. Gamified experiences, which can be easily made on games creation platforms like Drimify, make for interactive apps that are designed mobile first, meaning they can be used to engage target users on any modern device.

The different applications of gamification in the banking sector

Each financial institution adapts gamification and games creation to their needs and objectives, and gamification has taken on a variety of guises as a result. Whether it’s to promote savings and investments, build loyalty, or gather information on customer satisfaction, and whether it’s through standard web browsers or custom-built mobile apps, gamification is an excellent way of reaching customers in a simple way.

While some higher return gamification projects for traditional banks and more established financial service providers will be necessarily conservative, and a lot of them are locked in development or still in early phases, a lot of gamification projects have already been rolled out by banks. Here are some examples of where gamification can be successfully applied:

As part of a loyalty strategy to retain consumers

In the face of constant economic and technological change, customer loyalty has become a major issue for the marketing of every company. It costs businesses considerably more to convert strangers into customers than to retain business by holding onto existing customers.

Gamification can be used to promote loyalty in various ways. We can cite the experience of the Spanish bank BBVA, with a points system concept giving rise to cultural and sporting rewards (match tickets, etc.). Another illustration of the use of gamification for customer loyalty is that of the French company Juicy, with a similar points system, but this time with cash rewards.

In summary, gamification is very effective in a loyalty and conversion strategy, especially in stimulating monetary transactions.

Improving customer relations

Often, the process of contacting a bank is synonymous with waiting, sometimes interminably. To alleviate this problem, some banks have chosen to offer a gamification experience in the form of a mini-game during the waiting time in order to promote customer satisfaction. This was the case of ING Direct with its online game “Avoid the Neighbour,” which consists of eliminating virtual neighbours. This goes considerably further than hold music, which has been proven in itself to keep callers on the line longer, however, everyone hates hold music, and everyone hates intermediate operators who are just directing you to the right department. An interactive experience is a great way to make the waiting process less aggravating for customers, and could deliver them to operators in a far better mood, which would make for more productive conversations, and happier, more productive operators. (This in turn, while not the direct aim, could at scale deliver better staff retention, as financial services call centres are known to experience incredibly high turnover rates.)

As part of an education and learning strategy for consumers

Gamification has already made its way into the field of education and training as it is a great help in the learning process. Banks are already using the concept of teaching through games to teach good banking behaviour to its customers, particularly with regard to the notion of saving and investing.

Many fintechs and more traditional financial service providers around the world have set up online games and applications in this respect: Wells Fargo with “Stage Coach Island,” Capital One with “Junior Achievement Financial Park,” Visa and its “Financial Football,” and “Flappy Saver” from Ikano Bank.

Gamify your the user experience to effectively train staff, retain customers, and keep a competitive edge

This article is just a short introduction to the ways you can use gamification in the financial services industry. You could also incorporate them into your staff training. This allows you to create gamified learning pathways to expose employee operators to all sorts of scenarios. Through these, they can virtually apply their knowledge and learn best practices through repeatability. This is already a business function that has been effectively gamified across many different business sectors, so is easy to tailor to industries like finance where there can be high stakes for mistakes in real life situations.

Whether your goal is to more effectively train and retain employees, or enhance the customer experience through education and more enjoyable experiences, gamification offers limitless possibilities.

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