Gamification in FinTech: a Practical Guide

In a world where technology continually shapes and transforms our daily lives, the traditional landscape of finance is undergoing a remarkable evolution. Fintech is redefining how we manage our money and challenging conventional notions of financial engagement. Amidst this revolution, an innovative approach has emerged, blending the excitement of gaming with the seriousness of financial services — gamification.

As financial institutions strive to captivate and empower their customers, gamification has emerged as a potent tool, driving engagement, enhancing education, and transforming financial experiences. By leveraging game-like elements such as rewards, challenges, and interactive interfaces, fintech companies are reshaping how individuals perceive and interact with their finances. This groundbreaking integration of playfulness and pragmatism holds immense potential to revolutionize the financial landscape and redefine the relationship between consumers and their financial goals.

In this article:

Gamification and types of players

Trends in the development of the modern world require using cross-disciplinary and innovative approaches in business to achieve success. One such method can be considered gamification – the use of game methods in non-game processes. In education, gamification has shown significant potential to enhance the learning experience. By incorporating game elements such as rewards, achievements, and interactive challenges, educators can create a more engaging and motivating environment for students. Gamification makes learning enjoyable and fosters a sense of competition and collaboration among students, leading to improved knowledge retention and academic performance. Furthermore, gamification can be customized to suit different subjects and learning styles, making it a versatile approach that caters to diverse educational needs.

When it comes to business administration, gamification offers a range of benefits. Companies can increase employee engagement and productivity by implementing gamified systems and processes. Through the use of leaderboards, badges, and real-time feedback, employees are incentivized to complete tasks, meet goals, and strive for excellence. Moreover, gamification can promote a culture of continuous improvement by encouraging employees to acquire new skills and knowledge. This not only benefits individual employees but also contributes to the overall growth and competitiveness of the organization. Businesses can create a more dynamic and stimulating work environment by leveraging gamification techniques. HR departments are leveraging gamification techniques to enhance employee engagement, motivation, and performance. By introducing gamified elements such as challenges, competitions, and rewards, HR professionals can create a more interactive and enjoyable employee experience. Gamification in HR can be applied to various areas, including onboarding, training, performance management, and employee recognition. Through gamified training modules, employees can acquire new skills in a fun and immersive manner. Gamified performance management systems provide real-time feedback, set clear goals and targets, and recognize achievements. This not only boosts employee morale but also fosters a culture of continuous learning and growth within the organization.

In the world of FinTech, gamification has emerged as a powerful tool to engage users and enhance their financial experiences. By integrating game elements into financial applications and platforms, fintech companies can make traditionally complex and mundane financial tasks more enjoyable and accessible. Through features such as personalized goal tracking, virtual rewards, and interactive financial education, gamification encourages users to actively manage their finances, make informed decisions, and achieve their financial goals. Additionally, gamification has the potential to increase financial literacy and improve financial well-being by making financial concepts and products easier to understand and navigate. By leveraging gamification principles, fintech companies can revolutionize how people interact with and manage their money, leading to greater financial empowerment and improved financial outcomes.

Gamification of companies of various levels is used: small companies and startups focus on gamification of the product, medium-sized companies attract consumers, and large companies adapt staff and improve their productivity through gamification, but there are also mixed approaches. The types of players should be considered to understand better the process of attracting users through gamification.

Key features of a good game system

It is important to note that although the term "game" is used to refer to the process of interaction with a gamified system, gamification itself is not the creation of a game as such, and the game does not serve as a goal when introducing gamification elements into the work of organizing into a product. In this process, positive characteristics, elements, and mechanisms of the gameplay are transferred. The main components of the gamified system, thanks to which the user is attracted and retained, are the competitive spirit, the presence of a system of accumulating points, and the possibility of receiving rewards, but to build an effective gaming system in business, it is also important to determine the key characteristics of efficiency. 

Gamification is based on the application of methods that involve natural instincts, namely: competition, which further also leads to the attraction of higher-level needs according to pyramid A. Maslow: the desire for achievements (achievements), status, self-expression, selfish altruism, and problem-solving. The basis of gamification is the actual solution of problems or the implementation of various game tasks for which the player receives rewards of different types and levels, depending on the complexity of the task and the prizes already received or the problems solved. Incentives in gamification are points, honors, levels, and indicators of progress. An important component of gamification is also storytelling. 

Advantages and disadvantages of gamification

The motives for introducing gamification into business are:

• the ever-growing need of society for new impressions and experiences;
• the symbolization of many spheres of life;
• the improvement and cheapening of information technology;
• dynamic market changes associated with the transition to the online sphere.

Among the advantages of introducing gamification (as external, aimed at product or marketing, and internal, aimed at employees of the company) is increasing the level of involvement and satisfaction and creating a sense of belonging. An especially effective use of gamification is when working with consumers of "Generation Z" and "millennials". Among the shortcomings, it is worth highlighting the often short-term effect of gamification, the need to align the goals of gamification with the goals of the organization, and, sometimes, the somewhat superficial nature of gamification. The easiest way to integrate into the work of the organization is gamification aimed at personnel. Gamification of the product and gamification of marketing is more difficult to implement in the "non-game" spheres of entrepreneurship and require innovative approaches to product development and the marketing mix in general. 

Fintech and opportunities for gamification

One of the areas where (according to traditional approaches) the most challenging thing is to implement elements of gamification is the financial services sector. That is why the field of fintech is essential, where the introduction of gamification is much simpler and more appropriate. Fintech (or financial technologies) is the fastest-growing segment of financial services of our time. First, this is ensured by the rapid digitalization of all spheres and industries. In addition, fintech is one of the most innovative industries: technological development is accompanied by the latest approaches to the organizational and product components of the business. In fact, fintech is a combination of financial services and financial activities and information services. 

Fintech has penetrated all areas of the financial industry: personal financial management (CreditKarma, Mint, BillGuard), payments (Stripe, Square, Wepay), loans (LendingClub, Kabbage, Prosper), stocks (CircleUp, Loyal3), money transfers (Azimo, Payoneer, Currencyfair), retail investing (Motif, Kapitall, Wealthfront), institutional investment (Addepar, SumZero), crowdfunding (Kickstarter, Indiegogo), online banking (Cardlike, Simple, Moven, Atom), business means (Gusto, Xero, Zenpayroll), infrastructure (DemystData, Plaid, Mambu), security (Centrify, Riskifield, Signifyd, Feedzai), analytics and research (Seeking Alpha, Cosser, Xignite, Heckyl). 

Obviously, gamification is not appropriate for use in all areas of fintech. Gamification in this area is used to increase the financial literacy of the population, provide advice on managing their own finances, and promote certain innovations, in particular, Internet banking, etc. The most logical is the use of gamification in the management of personal funds, online banking, and in neobanks. 

Neobank is distinguished as a modern type of bank that operates exclusively online and without traditional physical branches while providing all banking services. According to research by Business Insider Intelligence, the cost of neobanks in 2024, compared to 2018, will triple, and the number of users will be fourfold.

Despite the existence of several models of neobanks, gamification is appropriate for use in all of them. 

Use cases of gamification in FinTech

Let’s look at real examples of fintech companies and neobanks that use gamification in their applications. Financial institutions all over the world use gamification in their apps and sometimes even business models to achieve greater results and attain a competitive advantage.

The most popular game features in FinTech

Yet, not also of the neobanks implement that many gamification features into their apps and strategy itself. Let’s take a look at some other examples where we may notice only a slight usage of gamification. Nevertheless, even the shadow of fun and entertainment brings success and loyalty to the FinTech companies mentioned below. 

These banks use gamification to benefit in several ways: 

• to help individuals, meaning customers, achieve their financial goals (which brings more money to their bank accounts and is crucial for the financial institution, obviously):
• to achieve their own sales goals by attracting new customers, providing better customer service experience and personalization:
• to use it as a part of their strategy of corporate social responsibility, which means teaching their users how to spend money wisely, save them easily, etc.

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Practical tips

Let's consider a real example of a neobank that is using gamification. An important element of gamification in this bank is voluntariness, which allows people who do not want to play games in the "serious" field of financial services; at the same time, the effect of "secrecy" of games guarantees excitement and interest among innovative consumers. It is also worth considering the advantages and disadvantages of using gamification in the field of fintech. 

Among the advantages:

• increasing recognition;
• attracting new users;
• increasing interest in the company of potential users and existing users in the product;
• increasing customer loyalty;
• obtaining a competitive advantage;
• a characteristic feature of USP.

Among the disadvantages: 

• the possible outflow of conservative customers for whom gamification of the "serious" sphere is unacceptable;
• the complexity of technical support and development of the gaming system itself, psychological analysis of consumers, etc.;
• the need for constantly updated content, levels, and development of new games.

It is worth considering the basic principles of the application of gamification in the field of fintech, namely neobanks, which are presented below.

Geniusee experience

With more than five years in FinTech development, our team tailored many financial services and products, including neobanks. One of the latest works of art we built is Zytara.

Key challenges for us were implementing parental control as Zytara is designed to be used among others by the youngest representatives of Generation Z, meaning kids aged from 6 to 17, and tailoring the app in a way to engage and retain young people.

To be honest, Zytara is not the first time we have created parental control, yet, we are always serious about it as kids, their data, and financial behavior are top-priority in cybersecurity. 

The real deal was to make it exciting. Of course, building a strategy and deciding on the implementation of gamification features is not on us, yet as we're not only building FinTech software but are also pretty experienced in consulting in the industry, we decided to talk to Zytara team about it. The outcome of this talk was one of the really powerful insights for us: personalization strikes it! Game changer, no doubt. 

We're not really about turning this article into an ad campaign, so if you’re interested in diving deeper into Gen Z neobank, read the case here. 

Conclusions

At the present market development stage, applying approaches from various fields can become a significant competitive advantage and ensure success in the market. The use of gamification of both product and marketing, business administration, and personnel adaptation can distinguish the company, attract attention, and increase efficiency and profitability. Given the constant digitalization of business, exacerbated by the pandemic and quarantine restrictions, as well as the fact that consumers of "Generation Z" and "Generation Y" (millennials) are becoming an increasingly important segment for business, it is advisable to use gamification in traditionally conservative areas of entrepreneurship, for example, in the fintech field. Integration of gamified processes and tools into the business will ensure an increase in the number of consumers, their retention, and in the future, their loyalty. In addition to deciding on the implementation of gamification in the company's work, it is also important to ensure the technological side of the process is at the appropriate level and a well-thought-out strategy of the game, the definition of gamification goals, types of players, their motivation, etc.

The common belief is that neobank and gamification for FinTech are only for Gen Z and even those of them who tend to choose rather online virtual life instead of real offline. Well, offline meetings that gather dozens of thousands of users held by Monobank or ZA bank prove this statement wrong. Almost all banks also use gamification to encourage their customers to make offline purchases. We find here also pieces of social responsibility implemented in learning features that are extremely useful for young adults with their first card. It’s only up to you and your strategy, goals, and objectives to decide on the usage way and purpose of gamification features in your FinTech app. In case you need some help, Geniusee is here to give you some consultations, assist in developing your service or transform traditional solutions into digital ones.