In the past, we’ve analyzed how gamification has helped transform many industries by reshaping customer interactions. Finance is no exception, with fintech deploying gamification techniques that explain complex topics with a simpler, more engaging presentation. While handling money is serious business, gamification can help services relate to the average person and take the tedium out of money management. Here are three examples where it does just that.
Personal Budgeting Apps
Budgeting is a core part of personal finance management, but it’s also the least exciting. Exercising restraint can be difficult for some, especially if it’s managed by impenetrable expense statements that are hard for the average person to read. To solve this, several apps turn budgeting into a game.
Some are very simple. They just add colorful progress bars that visualize saving money instead of relying on dry numbers. That way, someone halfway through the month can see if they’re on track to meet budgeting goals. Others get more creative, like allowing users to build a D&D-style character sheet, where savings and logged expenses earn XP. Some are framed around taking care of a digital pet or building a city, all fueled by cataloging money spent and money saved.
Trading Platforms
Trading platforms also benefit from gamification, often by reframing educational material surrounding the service rather than the act of trading itself. Many of these platforms require Know Your Customer (KYC) steps to start trading. This often includes a quiz that some platforms gamify to make it more interesting than it otherwise would be.
Even features you may overlook, like creating a leaderboard of your account’s biggest gainers, all come under gamification. Even better if they get converted into handy graphs that show your top five stocks for a certain period. Other fintech gamification methods include a fun spinning wheel for stock giveaways, often deployed for newcomers or loyal customers. It reframes a giveaway as a randomized game instead, complete with a roulette-style wheel and animated effects.
Social Media Integration
Social media elements are often adjacent and intermingled with gamification, adding extra features to finance and trading apps. While many services offer a leaderboard of your top-performing stock picks, some also have a social tab where traders can show their performance and see others on the app. Traders then get ranked on their performance, and followers can copy-trade experienced investors.
It goes further than that, with individual stocks having built-in feeds where traders can share news or discuss matters related to the stock. It’s essentially a Reddit thread or a comment section, contained entirely within the app and built on gamification mechanics. Larger trading platforms also host paper trading competitions where users compete for a cash prize. It’s entirely separate from actual trading, a side quest that helps promote the platform while rewarding its best traders.
Together, these gamification mechanics refine and enhance the user experience for often dry finance services. They don’t just make things more engaging; they also make the platform more readable while opening opportunities for other users to communicate with and educate one another.
