DIGITAL BANKING Tips - Tip 29: Gamification

“GAMIFICATION” means making the services or products more enjoyable and motivating for the users. Considering the BANKING is not the most entertaining industry in the eyes of the majority, bankers should work harder to deploy principles of Gamification in Banking. However, this could be done – many nice examples of it, together with many failed ones. The goal is to increase customer engagement, then raise the loyalty among clients and push the customer life time value up. If you like to know what differentiates losers from winners, keep on reading. 

Gamification is not something unfamiliar to banking in general, but the early examples were not like the ones used today and mostly initiated not by the banks. The very first gamification in banking example was Charles Floyd’s (also called Pretty Boy) – an American bank robber lived in Great Depression time, who endeared himself to the public by destroying mortgage papers at the banks he robbed, freeing many from their debts.  (A quick note: During his crime spree, bank insurance rates in Oklahoma were reported to have doubled. So no one can deny the positive effect created for insurance business. By the way, a bank robbery is only classified as such if it takes place within office hours, when people are present. If there is no threat against a person the perpetrators are classed as burglars) I guess you might imagine how popular he was in the minds of many, whom called the Pretty Boy as “Robin Hood of the Cookson Hills”. Of course this is a bad example and not created by the banks.

This is the short version of the post. 

Starting from Tip 2 to Tip 30 only short versions of my posts are available at Finextra. From Tip 31, full (long) versions of my posts can be read here.