Making Banking Fun: Gamification in Financial Services
Recently, the Banking.com team sat in on American Banker’s webinar, “Gamification in Financial Services: Five Proven Ways to Get an Edge,” which shared how leading brands in financial services have applied gamification to reach their target markets. Moderated by EMI Consulting’s Campbell Edlund, the panel of presenters included:
- Nick Maynard, Director of Innovation, Doorways to Dreams Fund
- Nicole Stonehouse, Senior Marketing Manager, State Street Global Advisors
- Jennifer Wilson, EVP – Multi Channel Planning & Administration, BBVA Compass
With content ranging from what gamification is, how companies are using it and walking attendees through a real-life, successful example, we wanted to get insight from one of the experts. We spoke with Nick Maynard, Director of Innovation, Doorways to Dreams Fund.
Q: Is Gamification for everyone? If so, why/why not?
Doorways to Dreams Fund (D2D) has successfully deployed a library of casual video games that engage consumers, build financial knowledge and confidence, and prompt real world action-taking. Our recently published report summarizes our findings on this work to-date. In addition, D2D and our partners have deployed prize-linked savings accounts through the Save to Win program which is now offered in four US states through credit unions and we have adapted this concept to encourage 100MM US tax filers to save part of their federal refunds. Building on this work, D2D is currently exploring the application of gamification to addressing consumer financial challenges like building emergency savings, financing higher education, and saving for retirement.
Given our experience, D2D believes innovative strategies to engage consumers are essential and impactful. Gamification, while new and unproven, is a natural extension of our approach and offers a new set of tools worthy of investigation and testing. Beyond what we’ve measured to-date, the data indicates that everyone plays games and video games, in particular all ages, demographics, and genders. It’s a language that consumers and employees speak. The open question is how best to deploy this tool and where gamification will prove most effective.
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