Sunday, 28 February 2021

Gamification and how it has changed investing/banking

Welcome back to another episode of SingaporeanTalksMoney. I will be talking about how investing has changed into something so accessible and kinda into gaming and how it is going to affect the future of investing.

Gamification of investing and digital banks

Let’s talk about gamification first, gamification is the application of game-design elements and game principles in non-game contexts. Early gamification strategies use rewards for players who accomplish desired tasks or competition to engage players. Another approach to gamification is to make existing tasks feel more like games. Making the rewards for accomplishing tasks visible to other players or providing leader boards are ways of encouraging players to compete.

Let’s take for example Tiger Brokers, they have a rewards system by making you log into the app daily to earn points which you can redeem for different rewards. Another thing they have added is to have accomplishments like referring a friend or to get you friends to open angbao for you.

Many platforms have been slowly integrating gamification in as it helps to retain current users and even help attract a substantial amount of new users to join in.

Fintech and Digital Banks

As more fin-tech emerges which is where technology is used to enhance or automate financial services and processes, a great way to onboard people would be through the use of gamification. One such platform is google pay where you are rewarded by transferring money and also by referring people in. Recently, they have launched a HUAT PALS campaign where you can complete tasks like transferring money, referring you friend to download google pay and also to use it for payments. This will in turn generate a huge amount people to download the app because people know that they can earn rewards and get cash.

Shameless plug for Gpay (my referral): v89ph61

As many of Singaporeans are aware, digital banks in SG will be appearing soon with mainly 4 digital banks where Grab-Singtel and Sea will get digital full bank licences. These digital banks will not have a physical presence and all banking services will be done online. How then will they be able to attract people to use their banking services? One way would be through gamification.

Is gamification really attracting the right audience

So definitely having some kind of rewards system to attract referrals will improve the sign ups but what you want is to ensure that the audience you are attracting is going to be using your application in the long run. You do not want them to be just signing up for the rewards and that's all.

One very successful platform I would say is Tiger brokers, in Singapore we do not many zero-commission or very low commission brokerages unless you have a certain amount of assets. This has made many of my friends afraid of starting to invest as they are scared of chalking up high commission rates which will eat up into their profits or add on to their losses. With Tiger Brokers, many of my friends are willing to onboard onto it and even start putting money in as one of the incentive is a stock voucher depending on how much you put in. In turn, I have a couple of friends who have started investing as the easy navigation and quick approval has attracted them over. Including the many stock vouchers.

Shameless plug for my Tiger Brokers referral: NI8KKM

As many different platforms emerge, it will be important for them to differentiate themselves from one another. Gamification might be one way to attract the audience but to make them stay on involves many other factors for example is the app easy to use? Is the UX interface smooth? Are the merchants or audience using them as well. Do you like having rewards and tasks in your apps to complete? Comment down below. Thanks for staying till the end and do remember to hit the like button and subscribe!

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 References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamification
https://www.straitstimes.com/business/banking/mas-awards-digital-full-bank-licences-to-grab-singtel-and-sea-ant-gets-digital

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